Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses
by planet p
Summary: Conversations, monsters and mayhem.
1. Chapter 1

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Note** AU. Prequel to 'Finding Bobby: Changeling'.

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"Tell me about yourself Bobby." Sydney waited. "It is 1977," he said, after receiving no response, "How old are you? When is your birthday?"

"August 16."

"You are 16. Tell me about your friends."

"Lupe."

"Who's Lupe, Bobby?"

"She's a girl."

"Can you tell me anything more about her?"

"I dunno. She might get mad. Nah… She's real smart. She was born in Mexico, but she doesn't live there anymore, well yeah. She can speak English, and Spanish. Lives in town. She has an older brother. He's in the navy, ships and stuff. She hates Math. Yeah, we're good friends."

Sydney nodded. "And Jim? Is Jim your friend too?"

"Jimmy? We used to be. I don't think so much anymore."

"Is this because of Lupe?"

"No." He laughed and shook his head.

"Bobby, is Lupe the reason you're not friends with Jim anymore?"

"Didn't I already say 'No'?"

"Bobby, I want you to tell me why you're not friends anymore. Why are Jim and you not friends?"

Lyle shook his head. "It'll sound stupid."

"No, Bobby, it won't."

Lyle crossed his arms. "His dad didn't want him being friends with a retard!"

"You're not a retard, Bobby. His dad was wrong in saying that."

Lyle snorted. "His dad is a doctor. I am right in saying that doctors are never wrong, Sydney? You're a doctor. Tell me. Are you ever wrong?"

Sydney frowned. "Yes, Bobby, I have been wrong."

"So, let me get this straight, so when you first meet a client and you say to them that you're a trained profession, do you add after that: 'But sometimes I get things wrong'?"

"No."

Lyle smiled. "No," he repeated.

"Bobby, do you think you're a retard."

Lyle scoffed. "Must be, mustn't I. It's down on paper." He listed them off on his right hand. "Attention problems stemming from suspected attention disorder. Reluctance to engage in social settings and situations. Sudden violent outbursts or withdrawal. Inability to keep still, bites fingernails, possibly able to be attributed to nervous condition. _Fucked up!_"

Sydney frowned. "Bobby, you are not fucked up. You're talking to me now, aren't you?"

Lyle dropped his head onto his shoulder. He put on a childish voice. "Please fix me, doctor. I'll be so happy if you do. _World peace and all that shit!_"

"Bobby, you have to calm down. Can you do that for me? Can you calm down?"

"Sure. Why not? Doctor."

"Bobby, you don't like doctors. Why is that?"

He shrugged. "I don't mind them."

"No, Bobby, you don't like them. They make you feel uncomfortable, angry even."

"No, there's a difference. I. Don't. Like. Fucking scum."

"So all doctors are fucking scum?"

"Oh yeah, for sure."

"Bobby-"

"Hold on. You're a doctor, right? Sydney?"

Sydney took a steadying breath. This wasn't exactly going the way he had planned. "Yes, I'm a doctor."

Lyle sat back in his chair. "Very cute. Very plush. But I don't negotiate with scum. Do you know what happens to scum, Sydney? Eradication. That's what happens to scum." He put on big eyes, nodding as though he were in fact conversing with a small child. "They die." He frowned. "So sad… Too bad!"

"Bobby, what was Jim going to do after high school?"

"Law school."

"And would that have made him scum too?"

"Sydney, do you seriously need to ask me that question. I don't think so. But yes – it would have!"

"Is that why you killed him? Bobby, did you kill him to stop him from becoming scum?"

Lyle laughed. "He was fucking my mother. He had to go. She made a promise when she got married, and he encouraged her to break that promise. That's a bad thing. Trust me! That is a very bad thing." He frowned. "My mother, fucking slut." He laughed. "Oh joy!"

"Bobby-"

"She's my mother! Just because he didn't have his own!"

"Bobby, did you love your mother?"

"Sure I did."

"And how did she feel when you killed Jim?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

"Did you kill her too?"

He laughed, put a hand over his mouth. "Nah."

"But she deserved to die, didn't she, Bobby? All women who are unfaithful deserve to die, all women who commit acts outside of marriage."

"Sydney, man, you need… to get… a therapist."

"I'm wrong?"

"It isn't their fault. Women are born with sin in their heart. It's our fault, Sydney, because we have to protect them from themselves, we have to keep them from the path of sin."

"So it's your fault, Bobby, that your mother and Jim were involved."

"I had to fix it. I made it better."

"For your father?"

"No. For my mother. She's a good person, it is only other people who make her a bad person, tempt her to evil."

"You made your mother a good person again?"

"Yes."

"Bobby… did Jim become no longer your friend when he tempted your mother to break her marriage vows and have an affair with another man? Or was it before, when he told you he couldn't be your friend any longer?"

"He had to go."

"Bobby, did you think that he might try the same thing with someone else? Did you think that he might make someone else evil?"

"Sure."

"You must love your mother, Bobby. Did your mother love you?"

"Sure she did."

"Was it worth it? To kill a person for her sake?"

"Of course."

"And what about jail, Bobby?"

Lyle shrugged.

"Bobby, did she love you enough to justify such a sacrifice?"

"I love my mom."

"Did she love you enough?"

"Yes."

"If she loved you, Bobby, would she have put you through that? If she loved you, why did she allow herself to be encouraged into temptation?"

"It's not her fault."

"So she's not responsible for her actions?"

"Yes, but-"

"Go on, Bobby."

"If someone is inclined to do bad things, someone else should stop them from doing those bad things for their own good. If you love someone, you don't want them to do bad things, you don't want them to be evil. You would stop them."

"Bobby, you killed someone."

"I know."

"Doesn't that make you evil? Nobody can save you from that."

"I know."

"So you admit that you're a bad person, Bobby?"

"Yup. Got my ticket."

Sydney shrugged. "So you're damned anyway, what does it matter if you do it again."

"Doesn't matter."

"Do you like killing, Bobby? Did you like killing Jim? How did it make you feel? Was it good?"

Lyle bit his lip. "It was kind of weird."

"Weird but good?"

"Guess so, doctor."

"And – damn – if you're going anyway, why not go out doing something that makes you feel good?"

"Hell yeah!"

xoxo

"Tell me about your father, Bobby."

"Bank manager."

"How did you get along?"

"Guess we weren't too bad."

Sydney thought before speaking. "He locked you in the shed."

"Because I was bad."

"You were bad?"

"If someone does a bad thing they might go to jail."

"What did you do that was bad, Bobby?"

"Oh, I have a mouth, if you know what I mean, for all the wrong things. I hit stuff, and I don't do what I'm supposed to."

"Do you want to stop?"

"Yes. It makes dad mad, makes him and mom look bad. Mom always gets a migraine. I want to be better. I do."

Sydney nodded. "I believe you, Bobby. Can you tell me about your parents? How is their relationship?"

"Good I guess."

"Your mom had an affair with another man, Bobby."

"Yeah."

"Why did she do that?"

"Do I have to tell you again?" He sighed. "It was Jimmy's fault. I fixed that."

"But what about when she promised your father that she would not be unfaithful when they were married?"

Lyle rolled his eyes. "I fixed it."

"So your parents weren't having problems in their marriage? Your father didn't hit your mother?"

Lyle frowned.

"So that she would behave the way good people were supposed to?"

"I guess."

"The way a good wife was supposed to?"

"Guess so."

"And what did you think about your father hitting your mother, Bobby? Did it make you angry, Bobby? Did you want to stop him?"

Lyle shrugged. "It was for her own good."

"Do you think she could have defended herself if she had wanted to?"

"I guess."

"She could have?"

"I suppose."

"But she is a woman."

"Yeah."

"Could your mother, as a woman, have stopped your father hitting her?"

"I dunno."

"You think so?"

"Yeah."

"Then why didn't she? It hurts when someone hits you, doesn't it, Bobby?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Why didn't you stop him? Did you want your mother to hurt?"

"No."

"But you didn't stop him?"

"That's between them."

"Bobby, you were aware of your father hitting your mother, the same as you were aware that your mother couldn't defend herself. Your father hit her and she didn't stop him because she _couldn't_."

"It was for her own good. She knew that."

"Did you know that, Bobby, when you're father hit you, when he locked you in the shed?"

"Yeah."

"Did she ever tell you that she knew that the beatings your father gave her were for her own good?"

"No."

"Then how do you know? How do you know she didn't hate them and want them to stop? You wanted them to stop, didn't you, Bobby?"

"Yes."

"But why, if they were good for you? Why did you want them to stop, Bobby?"

"Because they damn hurt."

"But you knew they were for your own good."

"I wasn't strong."

"Was your mother strong?"

"Yes."

"I don't think she was, Bobby. I think she wanted them to stop, but I think you were too scared to tell your father to stop hitting your mother because then he might hit you."

"Is that what you think, is it?"

"That is what I think."

Lyle thought for a moment. "Yeah. And?"

"So it mattered, that he might hit you again?"

"Yeah. It hurt. Of course it mattered."

"You loved your mother, but you didn't stop him from hitting her."

"I didn't want him to hit me."

"You killed a person because you loved her. Or was there some other reason? How can you, Bobby, think that it is less wrong to kill a person because they are threatening the person you love, than to stop someone from beating that same person even if it means getting beaten yourself?"

"It wouldn't have made it stop."

"It would have made it stop hurting."

"He would have just done it again."

"And you had the choice of stopping him again, or taking her out of the situation altogether. Why did you never suggest she report the beating to someone? Why didn't you ever tell anyone how your father beat you?"

"He did it to make us better."

"Bobby, you are not going to start on that again. And I don't care what you say, I'm not going to have it!" Sydney fixed his expression. "Did you ever think that the reason she had an affair with Jim was because he actually cared about her, because he loved her?"

"Dad did care about her! I cared about her."

"Your dad beat her. You let him."

"I was scared. I'm allowed to be scared too."

"Yes, you're allowed to be scared, Bobby. Everybody is allowed to be scared."

Lyle nodded.

"Was Jim allowed to be scared when you killed him?"

"I guess so."

"And he was scared, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"That made you feel good, didn't it?"

"Yes."

"What makes you think, Bobby, that it was okay for you to make Jim scared when it was not okay for your dad to make you scared?"

"That's not what I said," Lyle said suddenly. "I didn't say that at all."

"But wouldn't he have stopped if he had been scared. Was it really necessary for you to kill him?"

"He wouldn't have stopped. Sure, for a time, but then he would forget about being scared, and then he would do it again."

"Are you saying your dad should have killed you, to make you stop, Bobby?"

"No."

"Then why did you kill Jim?"

"It's not the same."

"It is the same."

"What he did was worse than what I ever did."

"Was it, Bobby? Or were you just so mad and he was there? I think, Bobby, that all of that stuff before, that was just a convenient excuse to kill someone. I think that you so badly wanted to fight back, to show them that you could be strong, that you didn't care how. You didn't care that it was right or wrong. You had your excuse, and you blew it out of all proportion to fit your purpose."

"Sure, you're entitled to believe what you want."

Sydney smacked his fist down on the table. "Don't you ever say that when you don't believe it, Bobby! There's not one rule for you and one rule for everyone else!"

"Fuck you."

Sydney shook his head. "No."

"So I'm fucked up." He leant back and crossed his arms. "What are _you_ going to do about it? You're not, because that's what you do. You talk big, but really, really, you're just chicken."

Sydney laughed. "No. I'm not chicken. I'm just fucking deluded. You happy now?"

Lyle shrugged. "I'll give you that, you're honest."

Sydney couldn't care less if Lyle approved of him or not, and the expression set on his face showed this. He couldn't care less.

"Be my friend, Sydney?"

Sydney offered no reply.

xoxo

"Tell me about her, Bobby. Tell me about your mother."

Lyle laughed. "I know what you're trying to do. Yes, we were fucking, and, yes, I fucking hated Jimmy when I found out about him and mom. Did I answer your question?"

"You did, Bobby. You answered my question."

"She was a hairdresser, worked at a little shop in town." He smiled fondly. "She loved me, you know. In the best way she knew how."

"Did your father know?"

Lyle shrugged. "Might have, might have not."

"So they really didn't- There wasn't-"

"They didn't fuck, no. But he did love her. Don't think that he didn't."

"How did he love her, Bobby?"

"He might have hit her, but he never forced her, ever."

"Did he have someone else, Bobby?"

"No, there was no one else," Lyle said, rather more calmly that Sydney had expected.

"Because that would have been wrong?"

"Yes, that would have been wrong."

Sydney sighed, and then said, "Bobby, did you have a girlfriend?"

He smiled and it almost seemed real. "Lupe."

"Did Jim ever talk to Lupe? Tell her about what his father had told him?"

Lyle shrugged. "Could have done."

"Did that make you angry?"

"Jim was a jerk. Why should Lupe listen to a thing he had to say?"

"What do you mean, he was a jerk?"

"Oh, he was always chatting to other girls."

"Did Jim have a girlfriend, Bobby?"

"He went out with girls."

"Okay." He sighed. "Did you love Lupe?"

"Guess so."

"You never chatted to other girls?"

Lyle snorted. "Lupe never got jealous."

"Did you ever hit her?"

Lyle watched Sydney for a moment. "Yeah. But not the way you think."

"How's that, Bobby?"

"It was just playful stuff."

Sydney nodded.

"Like shoving, and pinching. She was always pinching me."

"Did Lupe love you back, Bobby?"

"Yeah."

"And you loved her just as much as she loved you?"

"Yeah."

"Bobby, what about Lupe? Do you miss her?"

Lyle shrugged.

"Come on. You loved her. Do you miss her?"

He sighed. "Miss her or miss what she did?"

"You tell me, Bobby."

"I do miss her. It's like that moment when you're thinking that you have nothing to think about and then you suddenly realise there's something that you haven't quite forgotten, but how could you, and then you hate yourself a little for forgetting or for remembering what you swore to yourself you had forgotten." He paused in thought. "She was a good friend. And I think she would miss me. No, I know she would miss me. But she wouldn't miss what I am now. She would try. She would try so hard. That's the person she is. But it isn't fair of me." He smiled. "I try not to miss her."

Sydney nodded. "Bobby, I want to ask you about someone else now, about another time, and you just say if you don't want me to call you Bobby."

Lyle shrugged.

"I want you to tell me about your wife."

"NO!" Lyle shouted, getting to his feet abruptly. The seat toppled backward. "YOU CAN'T ASK ME THAT!"

Sydney stood quickly. "I want you to be calm," he said. Two nurses had rushed in to restrain Lyle.

"No!" Lyle said hysterically. The nurses took hold of him.

Sydney moved around the table.

Lyle fixed Sydney with a serious look. "No!"

"It's okay for you to calm down now," Sydney told him.

xoxo

"I want to be your friend, Lyle," Sydney said because he was talking to Lyle now and not some regressed memory.

Lyle snorted.

"The things is, friends don't lie."

Lyle made no comment.

"I want you," Sydney said, "to tell me about your wife. Something small to begin with. Tell me something so that I would know her were I to meet her."

"She was beautiful."

Sydney nodded.

"Here," Lyle told him, holding his closed hands over his chest. "She could never see that. I tried to tell her, but what words are there when you speak two completely different languages, all of your notions are not the same?"

Sydney frowned.

"It can never be the same thing: to love someone, and for someone to love you and for you to understand that."

"It was different? She was different?"

He laughed. "She was human, but not from this planet."

"She was human because she died."

Lyle smiled, watching the space in front of him with eyes that did not want to watch. "Yes she did."

xoxo

Parker killed the recording, retracted her finger from the button. She looked across to Sydney. What did he seriously expect her to say? To tell him if any of it had been the truth?

"I know I can't make you stop," she said, "but there is nothing you can do for him to make him… not that."

Sydney watched her and knew that she believed what she said. It had not been easy for her to say so.

"You could… try Angelo," she suggested.

xoxo

Sydney took the elevator down to the old Commons, where Angelo might often be found.

"Angelo," he said, noting the younger man across the room. It was always best to announce one's presence in a non-threatening manner.

"Good evening, Sydney," Angelo replied. "Oh yes," he said, and laughed good-naturedly, "Angelo talks."

Sydney smiled.

xoxo

Angelo leant across and took Sydney's hand.

Sydney was alarmed for a moment. One might take another's hand for many reasons, and one of those reasons was as the bearer of bad news.

Angelo smiled a big happy smile.

Sydney frowned, wondering whether he was going to say anything.

"Oh how the children make us love them! And they are ever so good."

Sydney, not knowing what to say not to sound rude, said nothing.

"Proud, am I so." He stood, taking his hand from Sydney's. "Do have a marvellous evening."

Sydney nodded. "Yes."

"Be safe, Sydney." He waved and watched Sydney out. He sighed, and remarked to no one, but, perhaps, himself: "Sorrow, at the poor thing that does not know itself for those who know it."

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Monsters soon, I promise. R&R, if you like.


	2. Chapter 2

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

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"Bobby, you're six now. Can you tell me where you are?" Sydney asked.

"Farm."

"You're at a farm? Whose farm is it, Bobby?"

"Grandpa Joe."

"Your grandfather lives on a farm?"

"Grandpa and grandma."

"What do they-?"

"Wheat."

"That's very good, Bobby."

"Super."

"Do you go to your grandparents' often, Bobby?"

"The weekend. On Saturday, mommy takes me in the morning. On Sunday, I go after church, in the afternoon."

"Do you like it at your grandparents', Bobby?"

Lyle smiled. "Yes."

"Why is that, Bobby?"

"Grandma and grandpa are nice. Grandpa has a tractor, you know."

"I didn't know that. It sounds very exciting."

"It is."

"Grandma and grandpa, whose parents are they, Bobby?"

"Grandma and Grandpa are mommy's parents."

"That's very good, Bobby. Bobby, I want you to tell me about yourself now. Do you have any friends, Bobby?"

"Jimmy."

"Jim?"

"Yes."

"Is Lupe your friend too Bobby?"

Lyle stared at Sydney for a moment. "Yes," he said, and laughed.

"Bobby, did I say something to make you laugh?"

"How do you know about Lupe?"

Sydney frowned. "I heard that she went to the same school. I was curious."

Lyle smiled.

"Do you do well at school, Bobby?"

Lyle shrugged, but he was no longer smiling. "I don't think so."

"You don't do well at school?"

"The others are smarter."

"What makes you say that, Bobby?"

"Mommy says I should pay attention more."

"You don't listen to the teacher, Bobby?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess."

"Bobby? What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Lyle smiled. "I want to be a pilot on a big plane."

"Have you ever been on an airplane, Bobby?"

"No."

Sydney smiled encouragingly. "I'm sure you'll be a great pilot Bobby."

"Thank you."

"That's fine." Sydney took a breath, part to prepare himself – his mind was made up – part to clear his mind as to how best to ask such a question. "Bobby? Do you ever hear things, things that you can't see?"

Lyle frowned. He smiled suddenly and hid his eyes with his hands. "Yes," he said, blinking at Sydney.

Sydney paced himself. "I'm not talking about a game, Bobby. I'm talking about other sounds: voices. But nobody else can hear them, or even see the people who are speaking them; not even you, Bobby, not even you can see these people."

Lyle frowned, confused. "No," he said, completely blank.

"Bobby, you have to be honest now. You have to tell the truth."

Lyle shook his head. "No," he said again.

"I'm not going to tell, Bobby. Anything that you tell me stays between you and me. Do you understand what I am saying, Bobby?"

"Yes," Lyle replied with a frown.

"Bobby?"

"No," Lyle said a third time.

Sydney sighed. "What did you think when I asked you if you heard voices, Bobby?"

Lyle giggled. "It was silly, but it was funny too."

Sydney smiled. "Yes, of course." Sydney allowed himself to breathe. "Bobby, would you tell me about your dad?"

"Daddy is very busy."

"Do you spend time together?"

"Yes."

"What do you do when you spend time together, Bobby?"

"Daddy asks me how was school. When he has time he stands in the kitchen and watches me to make sure I do my homework. Mommy does the dishes. I don't think she likes him being in the kitchen. I think she thinks he gets in her way. She always gives him the grumpy look when she thinks he isn't watching and then he looks at me and smiles because it is funny."

xoxo

Sydney knocked on the door twice. The door was answered a short time after.

"Green," Raines said.

"I came to talk."

"Oh I can see that. The talking part, that is." He turned from the door. "Come in."

Sydney did not sit down.

Raines stood leant against his desk. "What is it that you wished to talk about?" he asked, a brief glance across to his telephone. A phone call was waiting on Line 3. He turned back to regard Sydney, disinterested in his apparent phone call. "Dr. Green?"

"I have been working with Lyle recently," he began.

Raines frowned.

"I thought it would be the appropriate gesture to inform you."

"Oh yes," Raines agreed, bored.

"We've had quite a bit of success with regression, in fact."

Raines laughed suddenly. "Oh dear," he said, and fixed his expression into one of all seriousness.

Sydney frowned.

"He's lying to you, Sydney," Raines told him.

Sydney scoffed. "If you think that you're going to stop me from getting to the tru-"

"This has nothing to do with my truth or your truth," Raines interrupted. "Lyle is not going to let you or I or anyone chant some magical spell and abracadabra – all figured out."

Sydney laughed.

Raines frowned. "Trust me when I say, I have tried." He sighed. "This is not just some power play, Sydney," he said seriously, "this is about an individual who has been damaged, to what extent you or I can never fully say. This is about an individual and the coping mechanism which has gotten him this far." He looked to a wall. "It's a pointless exercise, Sydney, and one I would discourage if I only had half a chance of your taking my advice." He smiled. "Which… is not likely."

Sydney frowned. "No," he said.

"A long time ago, I thought I knew Bobby. None of this Lyle nonsense. Bobby." He smiled.

Sydney watched him.

Raines shook his head.

Sydney did not look in the least sympathetic, nor was he pleased. "You only have yourself to blame for that!"

Raines laughed. "Yes," he said, smiling.

Sydney averted his attention to the telephone, call still waiting.

"Leave that," Raines said and strode around his desk, pressed the button to take the call and replaced the receiver, ending the call.

"You're upset," Sydney observed.

"No. I'm annoyed."

"You're not going to dissuade me."

Raines laughed. "Wouldn't dream of it!"

"But you're annoyed?"

"Not you."

Sydney frowned.

"Oh no," Raines said and smiled because he was not going to tell Sydney.

Sydney walked to the door.

"Yes," Raines said, and nodded. He sighed heavily, just the thought of paperwork. "You wouldn't happen by chance to be in poss-" he began, falling short.

Sydney offered him the lighter from a pocket in his jacket.

xoxo

"It's going to kill you, you know," Sydney said, taking the cigarette offered.

Raines smiled. "Pray for me, Sydney."

Sydney looked around at him, stood against the wall beside him. He laughed suddenly.

Raines shook his head, closed his eyes and said a prayer that he should pass on soon.

Sydney made a face.

Raines turned and frowned, watching Sydney carefully.

Sydney did not look away.

Raines looked away to the far wall.

Sydney rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. He passed the cigarette back.

xoxo

"Angelo and I spoke yesterday," Sydney said.

Raines frowned.

Sydney regarded him.

"Yes," Raines replied because he had heard. He took Sydney's hand. "When I am gone, know that I did not always hate you."

Sydney frowned heavily, but he was prevented from comment.

The telephone rang and Raines stepped away from the wall to answer.

Sydney walked to the door, taking his time, but Raines was busy on the phone. Sydney shut the door behind him, confused.

xoxo

Sydney sipped a coffee, his mind far away. He started at the touch on his arm. Parker's blue eyes watched him carefully. "Miss Parker," he said briefly.

Parker frowned.

"There is some pressing matter that you wished for us to discuss?" he said, headed for his office.

Parker followed, leaving the vending machine behind, paper cup and coffee in hand. "How did it go today?" she asked.

To be honest, there had been little time for their session today. "Well enough as is to be expected," Sydney replied duly.

Parker watched him, her eyes questioning.

Sydney had nothing to tell her of his troubles, and had he, what would he have told her? He did not have an answer. It was best to avoid the whole thing.

Sydney handed over the cassette tape and Parker could read him enough to know that he preferred not to listen to the tape a second time. Not now.

xoxo

Raines rang him up a half hour later. "You're going to be worrying after me even before I ask, aren't you?"

Sydney did not reply.

"Oh it was a silly thing I said," he told Sydney. "I would hate for you to worry after myself, Sydney. Look, why don't you just go on and go back to worrying after whatever or whomever it is you usually worry after. Jarod, or… something. I'm not worth it. Really, I'm not."

Sydney frowned.

"Oh go on," Raines encouraged. "Did you think I would-" he fell short. "Tell me, Sydney, what should I say to make it better for you? Should I tell you how I would refuse to die just to spite you? Should I tell you how much I absolutely detest you? How I hate that you persist in encouraging my daughter toward the better part of her?" He laughed. "As if such a thing existed!"

"You could tell me the truth."

Raines hung up and Sydney was left listening to the dial tone.

xoxo

Sydney was straightforward. He'd had enough to bother to be anything else. "I want you to stop lying to me."

Lyle frowned and scoffed.

Sydney did not listen. "If you're going to lie I'm just not going to listen," he said.

Lyle laughed. "I don't know why I'm even fucking talking to you." He stood.

Sydney took his arm, having stood himself. "Sit down," he said and there was nothing optional about it.

Lyle pulled his arm free and walked out.

xoxo

Sydney passed a box of Cracker Jacks to Angelo.

Angelo huffed. "Life is shitty."

Sydney stared at him.

Angelo nodded.

Sydney frowned as if to say: No, he did not agree.

"You get so tired you think that you could handle if you never woke again." He laughed. "And sometimes you wish, you wish that you wouldn't."

"No," Sydney said.

"I'm sorry," Angelo said.

"No," Sydney said again.

"You couldn't possibly," Angelo said.

"Try me," Sydney shot. "At least give me that."

"It wouldn't be proper."

"I couldn't give a fuck about proper!"

"It's not mine to tell," Angelo replied and Sydney smacked his fist on the table. Angelo reached out a hand.

Sydney jerked back. "No, don't touch me!'

Angelo frowned, upset.

"I CAN'T…! I WANT TO! BUT I CAN'T!" Sydney shouted to Angelo's unspoken outrage.

Angelo stood from the sofa and stalked from the room.

Sydney didn't watch, began perusing through a collection of CDs not far away. He slapped one in the player and pressed play. He sat on the low table, face in his hands, and listened to the heavy metal playing over the stereos.

xoxo

"Oh gee, ain't this just a pity now," Lyle pouted, leant against the wall with his arms crossed, just watching Sydney. "Guess you didn't hear me," he said with a smile, referring to his coming into the room, and frowned at the stereo.

Sydney looked up from his hands.

"Hi." Lyle waved. He went over and sat down next to Sydney on the coffee table.

Sydney looked away from him.

"Is Sydney angry?" Lyle asked, though Sydney made no reply, and Lyle drummed his hand on the table and stared for a moment in the opposite direction. He rolled his eyes, exasperated. "I suppose you're _trying_ to give yourself a migraine." He sighed heavily. After a while, he stared up at the ceiling, and hummed loudly to himself. "Migraine," he said, because Sydney not talking was really giving him a sore head. The whole point of Sydney was, like, to talk people to insanity or death, whichever came first.

xoxo

"Tell me about the women. At least give me that." Sydney didn't look at him as he spoke.

Lyle watched the wall.

"Lupe. She was the first."

"I think we met that first day."

Sydney nodded, understanding that he was talking about primary school, and finally looking up. "Was she a good girlfriend?" he asked after a moment.

"She did her best."

Sydney watched the wall, same as Lyle. "How old were you?"

"Fifteen."

"Did she ever betray you?"

Lyle shrugged.

Sydney frowned. "That would have made you angry, upset you?"

"What do you think?"

"You said you were both friends with Jim?" Sydney remembered. "Do you think that she might have liked him also? Why was it that she chose you over Jim? You said yourself, they were all so much better than you."

Lyle snorted. "Guess Jim would have been the tame option."

Sydney laughed. "Tame perhaps," he said, turning to look around at Lyle, "but reliable."

Lyle smiled. "Yes."

"Lupe, she never once-?"

"Like I said, if she had, I was none the wiser."

"The thought never crossed your mind?"

Lyle shrugged. "Sure."

"So you-"

"She wasn't exactly the height of popular. I mean, who, if not I, would have had her?"

Sydney frowned. "She wasn't smart and beautiful?"

"No. She was both of those things. But it's like a blade. It never bothers you enough to take notice if not sharp. You're always thinking, it might cut me, it might not, better not slip, better take more notice."

"Lupe didn't have that?"

"Lupe was miserable and loud and happy, but a cheap imitation to their eyes, just a kid really."

"But you cared for her?"

"I wanted to."

"To prove that you were capable of caring?"

"Yeah."

"But it wasn't enough, was it?" Sydney thought back to something Lyle had said. "It is not the same: to love, and to be loved and understand that."

Lyle smiled. "Something like that," he said. "And no, it's not."

"You thought that if she cared for you, loved you, then your love for her would be sure to follow?"

Lyle laughed briefly. "It would seem that way."

"And so, gradually, it began to seem more and more that you could leave her, and less and less that you would miss her. All relationships have their purpose, but so too must all relationships eventually expire when the time has passed that we are no longer that person that we once were."

"I don't think I even thought of Lupe in that moment. And then, it didn't seem important anymore, that old life, but for to remind me of all that which I never ever wanted to find myself in again."

Sydney nodded.

"Lupe was one of those almost happy things. There was no way I was going to remember her. I never wanted to miss that old life. It would live on as a reminder that things were different now. There was no way they could be otherwise. I wasn't going to let them. So I didn't miss Lupe. In my memory of my childhood, Lupe did not exist."

Sydney frowned. "Surely-?"

"I couldn't let that happen so early."

xoxo

Sydney knew Lyle was more likely than not saying all this to please him, to gain what he thought would be Sydney's trust, but Sydney was not that quick to trust, not that quick to slacken caution, but he was good at coming across as otherwise.

"How's that migraine?" Lyle asked. He scanned the room momentarily and shrugged.

Sydney thought that perhaps he was worried that Angelo might be listening, might see right through his little game, maybe even tell Sydney so. Sydney puzzled inwardly. Lyle really thought that he had made way with him? Sydney refrained from a smile. "Well enough that my mind had been on other things."

Lyle laughed. "I had to ask, didn't I?"

Sydney frowned.

Lyle stood, changed the CD to Billie Holiday. He crossed his arms as he sat. "You asked about Lee?"

"Lee?" Sydney asked.

"Wife," Lyle replied.

Sydney frowned in contemplation. "Yes," he said. "It must have been difficult, the language barrier?"

"They say that words mean nothing at all next to love," Lyle told him.

"But you didn't love her, did you?"

Lyle frowned. "No," he said with something close to forcefulness.

"She was good for a while?"

"The novelty was fun."

"But novelty only lasts so long?"

"There was nothing at all to do with her after that."

Sydney said nothing.

xoxo

Lyle walked with him to the elevator, the three levels up to Med Space, medication for his migraine.

The pair passed Raines arguing with a blonde woman, the blonde very loud, Raines putting on a good show of keeping his calm.

Sydney frowned momentarily, his mind going over and over the possible causes for argument.

"Here we are," Lyle said abruptly.

Sydney frowned, not realising that they had walked so far.

Lyle had the extremely uncommon courtesy to knock before entering, gave it at least three heart beats.

Sydney was tempted to smile.

Lyle strode into Cox's office just as if he had been invited, although he can't have as Cox was clearly in conversation on the telephone.

Sydney reluctantly followed him in.

Cox looked up with a frown.

Lyle gave a little comic wave.

Cox shot him a warning look.

Lyle paused, grinned. When Cox finally replaced the phone, Lyle huffed.

Cox rolled his eyes.

"Gramps caught himself a migraine," Lyle told him.

Cox turned his attention to Sydney, stood up from his chair. "A migraine," he said.

Lyle sat down on his desk.

"Yes," Sydney replied.

Cox nodded. "Is that really necessary?" he shot, rounding on Lyle.

"No," Lyle said as though bored, but made no move to remove himself from the desk.

Cox laughed, returned his attention to Sydney. "If you're getting around with that one," he said, "it's little mystery."

Lyle leapt off the desk.

Cox grinned. "Do you suppose he understands Homo Sapien?" he asked Sydney.

Sydney struggled to keep the smile from his face.

Lyle stomped around Cox's desk and sat down at his chair.

"What are you up to?" Cox asked with a frown, Lyle typing away at the keyboard of his computer.

"Oh nothing!" he said airily. "What was your e-mail password again?"

Cox pulled the plug at the wall.

Lyle huffed. "Hey, I was writing so-!"

"Writing to whom?"

Lyle shrugged. "Parker."

Cox scowled. "Out!" he said. "How am I to maintain doctor-patient confidentiality with you in here?"

"I'll listen at the door," Lyle said, walking to the door.

Cox glared.

Lyle shut the door after him.

"Isn't there some sort of safe word you can use?" Cox asked in his irritability.

Sydney smiled with Lyle safely out of the room.

"I heard that!" Lyle said through the door. "I'm psychic you know!"

"Oh sure," Cox agreed, and suggested a medication to Sydney.

"That should be fine," Sydney said, and the prescription was written out and signed.

xoxo

Lyle stood leant against the wall opposite when Sydney exited the office, his arms crossed. Sydney paused for him to join him.

Lyle stepped away from the wall, bored. "Can I get you a coffee?" he asked, thinking of the coffee machine up ahead.

Sydney didn't know if he should be letting Lyle buy him things. Lyle might think that Sydney owed him. "Coffee's great," he said, before he had the time to think better of it.

xoxo

Sydney took a brief sip from his paper cup, looked around at Lyle, who smiled. Sydney frowned.

Lyle looked away from him.

Sydney noticed then that Parker was making her way over.

"Sydney," she said. Lyle could have been invisible for all the notice she took of him.

"Go out with me, sis?" he said suddenly.

"Dream on," Parker shot disgustedly.

Lyle shrugged, decided it was time to take his leave. "Tah, gramps."

Parker growled.

"Miss Parker," Sydney said.

Parker regarded him momentarily, turned and stalked in the direction of the elevators.

Sydney followed, coffee in hand. Safely inside the elevator, Sydney smiled at the annoyance on her face.

She glared at the door, yet the glare was meant for him.

It seemed almost affectionate, he thought.

xoxo

Parker said nothing to Sydney.

He thought that she was upset with him for talking with Lyle outside of their sessions. He thought of telling her that he had to talk to someone, but that would not be appropriate.

"You're not-!" she began angrily.

"No," Sydney reassured her with a smile.

She glared, thought it over, glared again, and accepted his response.

"I apologise for not getting you a coffee. The thing is-"

"I suppose he thinks that's the way to win you over!" she snorted.

Sydney smiled.

"Cheap bastard!"

xoxo

Later, Sydney went down to get the pills for his migraine.

After work, he watched an old black-and-white movie, a rerun, on the television, unable to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Sydney left for work early. He walked to the dining hall for a coffee. He made himself a coffee at the urn, lousy or not, and walked to the table where Lyle was sitting, about the only other person in the room, and took a seat opposite.

"Want one?" Lyle offered a small snap lock bag. "They're 99% fat free with no artificial flavours or colours."

Sydney frowned at the jelly dinosaurs. "Thanks," he said, choosing a yellow diplodocus.

Lyle stared blankly.

The diplodocus tasted of banana. Sydney sipped his coffee, lousy as always, thinking of the much better coffee the coffee machines offered.

Sydney looked up to ask why it was that Lyle carried jellies with him, but Lyle had gone. He frowned and stood to scan the room. It had only been a few moments. He turned on the spot.

He stared, rushed around the table, a horrible feeling beginning to spin itself in his mind the way a spider spun a fly in a web.

It was some sort of fit, he supposed. He did not move to help. He was thinking of the jelly dinosaurs.

Beside him, Raines took a jelly dinosaur from the table.

Sydney frowned, only just noticing him.

Raines touched Sydney's arm as he passed, cautiously approaching Lyle.

Sydney thought that that meant that he should stay where he was, not that he wanted to get any closer.

The convulsions stopped momentarily and Sydney thought that it must be over. He was wrong.

Raines retreated to Sydney's side.

Sydney looked at him.

"Out," he said. "Out of the room."

Sydney made to protest when Parker appeared at the door and strode over, suspicious.

Raines grabbed her upper arms and turned her around, back toward the door.

"Get your hands-!" she began. "What?" And began to struggle.

Sydney frowned because he was sure that Raines wouldn't have been able to hold her, but he looked to be having little trouble.

Parker looked across at Sydney as though she thought him mad.

At the door, Raines released one of Parker's arms to turn out the light.

Parker lurched away from him and skidded as she ran across the room at top speed. "You're both mad!" she shouted back to them.

"Come away from there," Raines told her.

"You want me, come and get me!" she shot back angrily.

Raines began back across the room, Sydney in tow.

"What the fuck is wrong with him?" she yelled, knelt on her knees.

"Would you listen to me for once, child, and come away!"

Parker growled, reached out a hand.

"Keep them to yourself!" Raines told her sharply.

A little too loudly, Sydney thought.

Parker looked around at the pair. "No!" she said, a wobble creeping into her voice.

"Come here."

"Fuck you!" Parker shot, turned away from them. She placed a hand on Lyle's head as though to check for his temperature.

His eyes turned in his head.

Raines took hold off her and dragged her back.

For a moment Parker did not protest. She rounded on him so fast Sydney was actually frightened. "Make him better!" she screamed, lashing out with her fists. "Fucking do something!"

"Sydney," Raines said.

Sydney and he managed in escorting Parker to the door.

"Sydney!" Parker pleaded.

Sydney forced himself not to reply.

The lights out and doors shut, out in the corridor, the three stopped. Raines frowned across at Parker. She turned her face away from him.

"Don't be stupid," he told her. "Look at me."

She did not.

He took her chin, sighed. She looked to be fine. "That was a very stupid thing you did," he told her.

"I don't even hear you!" she told him.

Sydney had relinquished her arm by this time. He stood away from the two, confused. Did Raines mean for Lyle to die?

Raines turned away from Parker, obviously to keep himself from slapping her.

She stood right where she had been before when he had been facing her, arms crossed, her face hard and determined.

Sydney stood uselessly, racking his brains for any reason, any reason to justify his taking Raines's side on this.

xoxo

"Angel?"

Sydney's heart did a back flip, very nearly leaping out of his chest in the process.

Parker turned, blank. "Daddy," she said.

Mr. Parker smiled affectionately. "Sydney," the Chairman acknowledged, "Raines."

Raines ignored him.

"Mr. Parker," Sydney replied.

"Is everything alright, Angel?" Mr. Parker asked, as though only just noticing the peculiarity of it all.

"Quite alright, Daddy," Parker replied.

"Mmm. I should think so," Mr. Parker said.

An abrupt bleeping invaded the relative quiet of the scene.

Mr. Parker got an upset look. "I have a call, Angel," he said. "I'm going to have to go."

Parker hugged her father. "Go, Daddy," she said and smiled encouragingly.

"Yes," he said. "Angel."

"Daddy."

Mr. Parker afforded Sydney a brief glance. "Sydney."

"Mr. Parker."

xoxo

"You bastard!" Parker shot. Raines ignored her just as he had ignored Mr. Parker. She snorted.

Sydney didn't dare move.

Parker, fed up, stalked to the doors and pushed.

"Do you mean for me to slap you?" Raines growled, taking her arm.

Parker jerked away from him. "If you're not going to do anything," she snarled, "I'm going to say a prayer for Ethan."

She threw the doors wide for a second before they came crashing back on themselves.

Sydney watched her on the other side of the glass doors, striding into the gloom, the only light coming into the room from the two glass entrances, the light of the corridors. He turned to Raines as though for answer what to do.

"Oh, for God's sake!" was all the answer he got.

Sydney did not reply.

Raines paced in front of the glass doors. Back to the doors, five steps into the corridor, five back to the door, turn, five from the door, and so on.

Sydney heard in the back of his mind, the sound of footsteps.

"You can't go in there, love," Raines was saying. "Unfortunate thing, there was a contamination. The lab techs have just left."

The cafeteria worker was sceptical, however when she turned away, she seemed satisfied. Three of her co-workers followed suit. The first gestured to a fifth who had emerged at the top of the corridor.

"Enjoy the break, love. You do get paid," Raines said as she left.

"Contamination," the first cafeteria worker was saying to the fifth.

Once the five had departed, Raines turned back to the door.

"What do we do?" Sydney asked.

"We don't do anything," Raines said.

"There must be something you can do," Sydney began before he had properly thought about it.

Raines laughed shortly. "Why's that, Sydney?" he shot.

"You're Med Space Director! Back in the day," Sydney continued, struggling not to stammer, "they used to say you were the best."

Raines leant his head against one of the glass doors. "Tell me what it is that you imagine that I can do, Sydney?"

"There has to be som-"

Raines shook his head, stepping away from the double doors. "There is nothing," he said. "And that bloody girl has gone on in there to pray for him." He laughed suddenly.

Sydney followed Parker into the room.

"Sydney!" Raines called after him. "God damn it, Sydney!"

Sydney kept walking, ignoring him.

Parker was speaking in Latin, on her knees.

Thankfully Lyle had stopped seizing. Sydney thought that perhaps he was dead.

His head fell to one side.

Sydney stopped dead.

Parker paused in her prayer, the overlarge eyes fixed on her own.

"Evil must burn," Lyle said steadily, cold as petrified stone. "Pray with me, child. Pray with me now."

The screaming startled her. She stood and ran, ran straight into Raines who had come into the room and was stood inside the door.

Raines held her for a moment, perhaps waiting for Sydney, perhaps transfixed by the screaming.

xoxo

The three stood once again in the corridor.

Parker could not think over the screaming. Indeed she made no protest at Raines holding her.

Sydney could not fathom it.

Raines closed his eyes. He was thinking that this was bad.

He started to walk away, taking Parker with him, who followed as though not in control of herself.

Sydney turned. "What?" he said. They weren't just going to leave were they?

Raines offered no reply.

Sydney did not move from the spot he was on.

xoxo

Raines stopped at the corner. "Sydney, come here," he said.

Sydney stood as still as ever.

"Sydney, help me take her to Med Space and we will talk."

Begrudgingly, Sydney left his post.

xoxo

They did not talk. The elevators, Med Space, along several corridors. They turned into a ward.

"Fulton," Raines said, sitting Parker down at one of the pale green beds. "Watch her."

Fulton was short, with straight blonde hair, and in her early forties. The woman watched Raines for a moment. She rolled her brown eyes and moved to Parker's side. She didn't look across to Raines again.

Raines led the way out of the ward. In the elevators, he watched the keypad. "Do you believe in evil, Sydney?" He turned abruptly to Sydney.

Sydney frowned.

"Do you pray?"

"I don't see-" Sydney began, shaking his head.

"That boy is possessed!"

Sydney stared at him as though mad.

"Know any good exorcists?"

"This is bloody serious, William!" Sydney shot.

Raines laughed. "Oh, you think I'm not serious!"

"Lyle is sick-!"

Raines ignored him.

Sydney grabbed his arm roughly. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

Raines said nothing.

The elevator doors sprung open with a ping. Raines pulled his arm free and strode away from Sydney.

Sydney almost had to jog to keep up.

"Raines!" Cox came flying around the corner up ahead. "Fulton told me something was-" His two nurses emerged at his back. "What's going on?" he said.

Raines strode right past.

"Director?" Cherry began.

"I'll give you the count of five, and no longer. Turn around now and get back to your jobs or you're fired, right here, right now." He began to count, "One. Two. Three."

The two nurses, Cherry and Plum turned. Cox did not.

"Four," Raines continued.

Sydney caught up to Cox and pulled him around. "Work!" he said. "Now!"

"Five."

Cox turned and began to walk, his nurses falling in behind him.

"William!" Sydney said, his voice raised. "Do you mean to tell me that by some strange turn of event, Lyle's Inner Sense seems to have turned on him and-"

Raines laughed. Laughed, that was all.

xoxo

Saturday, Lucky Saturday, Sydney thought as the pair rounded the corner to the dining hall. It was lucky it was Saturday because there was practically hardly any turn up in the dining hall.

The lights were back on.

Sydney peered into the room but couldn't see Lyle from this side of the table.

Raines barged into the room, Sydney at his heel.

The pair spun abruptly at the sudden clicking sound from behind them.

Lyle shook his head. "Dear me," he said, "is anything the matter? The pair of you look quite beside yourselves."

"Lyle-" Sydney started to say.

"Oh shut up!" Lyle told him, and laughed. He turned on the spot. "This is fun."

"Stop it!" Raines said, careful to keep his voice firm but even. "You're damaging him!"

Lyle laughed. "Oh dear, that would be a bad thing, now wouldn't it?"

"What do you want?" Sydney demanded.

Raines did not even turn to glare. He was not taking his eyes off Lyle.

"I want my sister!"

Sydney looked confused. He didn't know whether he should answer or not.

"I want Catherine!"

"Dorothy, stop it."

"Why?" Lyle who was Dorothy laughed. "He doesn't matter."

"He's Catherine's son. He's your sister's son."

More laughter. "He's evil! How can evil matter?"

"Dorothy, this isn't the way-"

"I said, shut up!" Dorothy screamed, and Raines was thrown backwards across the room. Dorothy smiled.

Sydney just did not move.

"You!" Dorothy said, her black eyes landing on Sydney. She snapped her fingers. "Name! Quickly!"

"Sydney," Sydney replied, too terrified to think to disobey.

Raines got to his feet. "Do you mean to make me angry, woman?" he growled, and now his voice was different, and somehow deeper.

Sydney wanted to turn, to see what that was, but terrified as he was, he refrained.

He did not have to wait long however.

The thing that came up beside him was no longer Raines. No, that was not human.

The eyes too pale and too blue, the fingers long and knobby.

There was something else too, something that made Sydney want to shiver.

"What is this?" Dorothy demanded.

Raines laughed.

Sydney stepped to the side, away from the thing that was not Raines and spoke with a British accent. Should an alien have a British accent, he wondered?

"It doesn't matter," Dorothy said on inspiration, "not at all."

Raines laughed. "No," he said, cooing. He held out a hand and beckoned to Dorothy with a finger. "Come, let me whisper in your ear."

Dorothy frowned. "What?" she said.

Raines lunged sideways, seizing Sydney. "Shh," he said, holding a finger over Sydney's mouth. "You don't want to scare it away now, do you?"

"Scare what away?" Dorothy asked, somewhat bewildered, her eyes on trembling Sydney. She smiled at the sight. He talked funny.

"The secret, human child," the Thing That Was Not Raines breathed in hushed tones, all dramatic. "Tch-tch-tch-tch," it told Sydney. "Don't you be scared now. You're beating heart will scare the secret as easily as any SHOUT!"

Dorothy jumped, affronted that the thing had managed to startle her. "Yuck," she said, edging forward.

"Closer," Raines encouraged in eerie tones. "Human," he breathed in anger, "should I rip it out for you? Would that stop it?"

Sydney stopped breathing.

"You're going to scare him," Dorothy admonished, because she would never admit to her own fright.

The side of Raines's face twitched in momentary annoyance.

Dorothy paused. "Let him go," she said. "I don't want him to touch me."

Raines threw Sydney away from him, rag doll-like. Sydney knew not to get back up.

"Tell me!" Dorothy spoke in a hoarse whisper, leaning in toward the horrible thing. "Tell me now!"

Raines leant in to her ear.

She twitched as though she might catch some great terribleness from this unnatural thing.

Raines began to speak, but he had no words for her. He took her face in his hands.

Dorothy screamed. "What are you doing?" she shrieked.

"Hush now!" Raines growled as the energy was drained out of her host, the life, for that was what this brand of monster did best.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Dorothy shrieked at the smiling thing. Its teeth all too sharp.

Raines smiled gleefully and sung a lullaby as Dorothy scratched and clawed and struggled because she was dying.

"Soon," he said heavily. "How weary you are becoming. Soon you will be sleeping, child. It will all be just a dream. In dreams, nothing can hurt you. Soon, soon…"

Dorothy finally stopped. Stopped moving, stopped everything. The host was dead. And she was gone, evicted.

Raines put Lyle down on the floor, stood away from him, walked away.

Sydney heard him walk to the opposite end of the room. The lights that had began to flicker wildly earlier had not yet stopped and Sydney realised that it must be the Raines thing that was doing it, somehow it/he was interfering with the lights.

He turned slowly. Lyle wasn't breathing, hardly any paler at all. A deep sleep, Sydney thought, a deep sleep where one did not breathe. Dead, he thought, dead because that thing had so much as touched him.

xoxo

The thing came up in his peripheral vision. Sydney almost passed out. Its eyes watched him, calculating, formulating.

Sydney did not move.

It passed him by, stalked back to the dead body.

It knelt down in front of Lyle, placed one hand on his chest, and the other.

Sydney looked away. He did not want to see someone's heart being ripped out of their chests and eaten. The thought made him want to be sick, although he knew he wouldn't, not with that thing there.

He sneaked a look, just to make sure that wasn't its breath on the side of his face, it hadn't come for him.

It was still over by the body.

He frowned.

The spine on the thing seemed as though it might tear away from its back.

He almost smacked at his arms, but the feeling was all over him, as though bugs were crawling over him.

That thing was doing something, he knew. Something unnatural. He might have laughed at his own stupidity. Something more unnatural, he corrected duly, to take his mind off the overwhelming buggy feeling.

The thing shook suddenly as though in fit. It collapsed sideways and didn't move.

Sydney watched it for some time, never taking his eyes from it, or blinking, and it was then that he noticed it.

Cautiously, he scrambled across the floor toward Lyle, who was suddenly breathing.

There was no time to stare.

They needed to get away from that! Before it recovered. The amazing killing/unkilling hungry for living humans thing.

He tried to help Lyle to sit, and was rewarded in his efforts by a large amount of blood being thrown up on him.

It was nothing, he assured himself. Get to the door. Get out the door. Call a Sweeper team, or the whole Department. Get to Med Space.

xoxo

When all that was successful, Sydney couldn't sit still. He needed a coffee, he thought, then he thought how stupid that would be.

He wondered if that thing that was no longer Raines was actually Raines taken over by an alien life-form. Raines always said the African branch had aliens.

Perhaps it was none of those things. Perhaps it was one of Granville's pets, and had been masquerading as a human all these years. He winced. He wasn't so sure Catherine had been cremated after all.

Thankfully, he was sedated, before he actually had the notion to open his mouth and words came out. That would have been the end of his career. The end of everything really.


	4. Chapter 4

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

"Lyle, possessed?" Parker couldn't help it, she had to laugh.

Sydney nodded. He finished telling her the rest of what he could remember.

She looked away from Sydney. "You're serious? I was praying?"

"For Ethan you said."

Parker smiled. Ethan was a good boy. "Possessed by what?" she asked, because Ethan would be sure to want to know exact details when she told him. It was always better to be safe than sorry, she remembered them drumming that into her as a small child, better late than never.

"A woman. I'm not sure if she was dead. She was looking for her sister. The sister was dead."

"Just some random madwoman then?"

"I'd say so."

"How does he attract them?" Parker mused of her brother. She fit it all together in her head, everything Sydney had told her so far, the little bits she remembered, minus the bonkers Parker bits – because she didn't remember those. "Do you think she's dead? If she wasn't already?"

"Who can say?"

"What about Monster? Will he survive to terrify Sydney another day? I was thinking about adopting him as my guard dog."

Sydney did not look pleased.

"I wonder if Lyle is monstrified too. Raines is our biological daddy." She frowned thoughtfully.

Sydney was not saying anything.

"Jarod and I were lucky," Parker said abruptly. "I mean, relatively. We weren't monstrified. It's a genuine expression of the anomaly, Sydney. And it's kinda creepy too, huh?"

Sydney watched her for a long moment.

"You never know. You could be a monstrified sleeper."

Sydney laughed. "Does it say anywhere in your Book of Monsters and Geniuses about healing?"

Parker shrugged. "I haven't read the whole book, Sydney. You should ask a psychic."

Sydney snorted, thinking of the time when Lyle had told Cox that he was psychic.

"Angelo," Parker said. "None of that chat line rubbish."

"I'll make a note of that," Sydney replied.

xoxo

"I could murder you!" Parker told Raines, which, she decided, would not be an easy thing, but she would manage somehow.

He was sleeping, but it didn't matter.

"Sydney thinks it's some freak act of misfortune," Parker went on. "He's going to have nightmares." She grimaced. "You could have bloody told me that Lyle's an Empath." She shook her head and picked up one of his hands in hers. "Is that it? Is our dad an Empath?" she asked. Truthfully, she had known all along that Raines was not her father. He had told her once, when she was very little, and very much in love with him the way a child is with their parent.

She huffed.

He was going to get better.

xoxo

"The human antennae comes bearing gifts," Parker sprung, cup of coffee in each hand. She handed one of them to Lyle.

Lyle looked up at her.

She placed the paper cup on his desk. It looked as though he was attempting paperwork. She had an overwhelming urge to express how proud she was, but refrained. Paperwork was hard work.

"Hi," she said, and pointed to the coffee. "Coffee," she said.

"I'm not deaf," Lyle told her.

She took a sip of her coffee. "Do you know they chop trees down for this?" she said, indicating his messy paperwork.

He looked up at her.

"They chop trees down to make paper," she said loudly.

He looked around the room. "Yeah," he said. "They do."

Parker frowned. He thought she was being stupid to cheer him up. Yuck. "Was she good-looking?" Parker asked. "This madwoman who possessed you, little brother of mine."

He frowned. "You ask yourself that."

Parker placed her cup of coffee down. She kept a hand over the top in case he decided to swap. She wasn't keen on his germs. She frowned. "What?" she said.

"Never mind," he said. "Think of all the trees they must have chopped down for that paper cup you're holding."

Parker frowned. "Sustainable forestry," she told him. "They have things called plantations and they grow trees to cut down and then they grow new ones."

Lyle shrugged, his attention on his paperwork.

"Did you see Momma when you were dead?" she asked.

Lyle didn't look up at her. "No," he said tiredly. "I had a nice long chat with Jacob about how to get Sydney to stop bugging me already."

"You didn't."

"You asked."

Parker glared, took a sip of her coffee so she didn't have to reply. "I'm off," she said.

Lyle rolled his eyes.

Parker imitated him, even though he wasn't watching. She was starting to think that he didn't have to be watching to know what she did, Empath as he was.

She would have to ask what Class he was. Angelo was a Two, so she'd heard, but he was also banana smoothie upstairs.

She sighed, depressed. Time to visit Banana Smoothie, she supposed, and tell him of the exciting adventures of _The Man Who Wanted to Eat Sydney_.

xoxo

Parker strolled into Commons. Angelo was asleep on the sofa, his arms on the armrest, face rested on his arms.

Parker sat down beside him gently, reached out and patted his back.

Angelo stirred sleepily and struggled to sit.

"It's Parker," Parker said.

Angelo watched her through bleary eyes.

Parker leant over and hugged him. She sat back from him and regarded him, a smile coming to her lips.

Angelo watched her as though there was something he needed to ask. "He's going to be okay?" he asked.

Parker frowned. Angelo had spoken. "Yeah," she said, although she wasn't quite sure to whom he was referring.

Angelo nodded, trying to look reassured.

Parker held his hand.

There was a scream from behind her and before she could properly turn something small and heavy had launched itself at her and was holding her tight.

Parker smiled at the sight of the little boy.

He curled up on the sofa beside her, his arms around her.

"How are you, baby?" Parker asked.

Reagan frowned. "Big brother was sick. I heard Cox say so to Dr. Merchant."

"Lyle's okay now, baby."

Reagan was watching her as though for signs of a lie. "Okay," he said.

Parker smiled her best smile for him.

"Were you very unwell?" he asked.

Parker's smile turned to a frown. "I don't understand," she said.

Reagan searched for the words. "When big brother was unwell?" he said.

"No, baby," she told him. "I was just fine."

Reagan rested his head on her arm.

Parker looked across at Angelo, frowning.

"Reagan thought that perhaps, being twins…" he said, watching Reagan for his response.

Reagan nodded.

"I was fine," Parker said.

"I'm going to school now," Reagan burst out.

Parker grinned, turned to face him.

"Three days a week," he told her.

Parker patted a hand on his red hair.

Reagan smiled back.

Merchant watched the three on the sofa from the door.

"Daddy drives me in, in the morning," Reagan said.

Parker frowned in interest.

"I have to sit next to a girl named Rebecca." He shrugged. "She doesn't talk to me."

Parker's frown changed from interested to sad.

Regan grinned. "I have soccer training after school too. It's really super."

Parker nodded.

"Miss Parker," Merchant said, coming up to the sofa. She sat on a low table opposite.

"Dr. Merchant," Parker acknowledged.

"You do look well," Merchant said.

Parker frowned. It was not meant as an offense, she sensed. She supposed it was more of this twin rigmarole. "Yes," she said without sounding self-absorbed.

Merchant frowned. "I daresay we're all in some way glad for the reprieve," she said, and sighed. "It's nothing permanent, to be sure," she agreed.

Reagan frowned.

"No," Parker backed. They were talking of Raines of course.

Parker felt something squeeze her hand.

Merchant stood from the table. "Best be off," she said. "Miss Parker. Timothy."

Reagan hugged Parker a last time before he was off. "Big sis," he said.

Parker nodded. "Bye you."

Reagan walked out after Merchant.

Parker turned to Angelo and smiled. It was him who was holding her hand, of course. "It'll be fine," she said to him.

Angelo did not not trust her, yet he could not quite believe her.

xoxo

"You don't have to worry for him," Parker said to Angelo. "I more than anyone understand that."

Angelo looked away from her. He sighed.

Parker frowned.

"He's my father. I could hate him, but I could… not."

Parker shook her head. "Angelo, I know that you've had very little contact all these years but you don't owe anything to Raines, least of all your concern. You can go ahead and-"

"No," Angelo said. "He's my father."

Parker had to find some way to explain. "Angelo, I know you think he's probably the only person who's looked after you all these years, the only person who never forgot you, but-" She put it to him bluntly. "He's not your father. He never was. He's just what was there, nothing more."

Angelo stood up from the sofa. "You're wrong. He is my father."

Parker shook her head. How could she make him understand?

"I love him. Nothing he or anyone else can do to me can make that stop. And I'm sorry if you can't fathom that, but I love him."

Parker got up. "Angelo?" she said.

"Can't you tell?" Angelo said suddenly. He turned to Parker and held her gaze. "Look at me and tell me I'm lying."

Parker frowned painfully. No, he was not lying. She could go on telling herself that it was just his belief, a false belief stemming from some deep insecurity, to fill a void, but she knew as well as he did that Raines was his father.

"There's no family waiting for me. There never was. This is it. This is what I am, where I am."

Parker reached out a hand.

Angelo stepped back, out of her reach.

"Angelo, please, I think you know what I'm going to say-"

Angelo cut her off. "It's not all about family. It's about consideration and kindness and goodness and trust."

Parker nodded.

"Do you know what hope is? Hope is thinking, thinking that just once… And sometimes, sometimes, there is nothing in the world that can stop that."

Parker reached out her arms and he finally allowed her to hug him. She didn't say anything, because all of those words weren't working for her today.

xoxo

"Reagan's the same, isn't he? An Empath."

Angelo nodded, said nothing but nodded, because what could he say to that resigning tone in her voice.

Parker turned away. This was hard for her. She remembered one particular history class. During the 1600s, an off-screen video narrator duly informed the class, many children went unnamed before they were two because of the high rate of mortality among this age group. In a round about way some people did the same thing with attachments. Didn't they always say: once bitten, twice shy?

Parker took a breath. People always said she was stone cold.

"What do I do?" she said.

Angelo sighed. He wasn't going to make that decision for her and have her blame him afterward. It was harsh, but he just wouldn't put himself in that position. "Think about it. Give it some time. An answer will come to you."

Parker scoffed. She stalked out of the room without so much as a word.

xoxo

"Sydney, just tell me what to do."

Sydney frowned.

"How do I protect him, Sydney. Because I want to, more than anything. He's my baby brother. I love him. Now how do I protect him?"

Sydney watched Parker momentarily.

"Sydney?"

The almost whine in her voice made him uncomfortable, but he pushed the feeling away. She was a good person. He didn't know that that accounted for so much in this world, but he liked to think that it did. And Parker was strong. "If you love him, then what happens is what happens," he said, knowing that that hadn't come out quite right, but he wasn't quite sure how to phrase it so that it would.

Parker stared at him.

"Whatever you do," he went on, "there's no way to tell the future. Sometimes, you can have a fair idea of where things are going, and at other times you can think that you know exactly what is going to happen and then when something does happen you don't now where that came from. But that's not what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is, we can all only do our best. And I know some people would disagree, but if you honestly do try then that is all you can do in that instance."

Parker avoided telling him that everything he had just said was a cop-out. He could tell by the way she averted her eyes from his.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

Parker's gaze returned to his. "You were Momma's confidante… She confided in you. Did she ever mention my brother? Even just that I had had a brother, or something like a brother?"

"No," Sydney said. It might have sounded to Parker as though he hadn't thought it over, but he had.

"Her Inner Sense-?"

"If she had known anything at all, she did not tell me."

"And your-"

Sydney cut her off, frowning. "I don't see how that could happen."

"I mean, because you and Momma were friends."

"No," he replied, and then he wondered if he had been a little too short. It was never a good thing when one lost their patience with Parker. She was liable to switch them right off.

Parker said nothing. She walked to the door.

Sydney didn't try to stop her.

"Sydney," she said distantly.

"Yes Miss Parker?"

Parker paused. "I'm going out," she said conversationally. "No questions, just goodbye: 'I'm going out.'"

"Oh, yes," he said humorously, feeling really very silly but trying not to show that he did.

Parker shut the door behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

"Brother of mine!" Parker exclaimed, waltzing into Lyle's office unannounced as usual. She figured he would know when she was coming, psychic and all.

"I never see her."

"What?"

Lyle rubbed a hand across his face.

The paperwork was really getting to him, Parker thought with amusement.

"Catherine."

Parker leant her back to the wall. Okay, so that made a lot of sense.

Lyle shook his head as though wondering why he had even bothered and went back to his oh so painful paperwork.

"Tell me about it?" Parker said, hoping that he would choose conversation over his paperwork.

Lyle ignored her.

"Hey!" she said sharply. "Tell me about it?"

Lyle looked up at her. "I'm busy," he said. "Go away."

He sounded tired, Parker thought, but that didn't excuse his dismissing her.

"I'm not Daddy. Don't make me come over there and take you out."

Parker glared. He wasn't Daddy no, and that was what pissed her off. He was her brother. She knew that they didn't get along so well, they practically hated each other. But – damn it! – she was making a real effort and all he did was tell her he had no time for her.

"It doesn't work like that," he told her. "You can't just suddenly decide that you're related to me."

Parker scoffed, and then she laughed. He, who had done nothing but, was criticizing her! The bloody hypocrite!

"I'm not going to tell you anything," he said, standing now. "Get out!" He stomped up to her, took her arm, dragged her to the door, and shoved her out.

Parker took a step back as the door slammed. "You freak!" she screamed. She ran.

xoxo

Parker stood there. Just stood there. In her office. She was afraid to move.

Her eyes found the stuffed rabbit she had kept as a child. It was a silly blue thing, and she had always said that it was a bunny rabbit even though its ears were too long. It was a he, and his name was Winston. Winston, she thought she remembered, had been given to her at a show, the sort that you won from a stall. Her mother had taken her. She had been three. Quite accidentally on purpose Catherine had run into Raines. Little Parker had had little idea of what they had been talking, but she got a bunny and she was happy.

Parker took up the stuffed rabbit and dissolved into tears.

xoxo

"Yuck. You're not crying are you?"

Parker's chin snapped up.

"Hello there," Lyle said cheerfully, quite as if he was addressing a small child, and stepped away from the door.

"You get out!" she retorted loudly.

"Make me," Lyle said, almost as if his mind was on other things.

Parker stood from her seat. "I'll hit you!" she warned him.

"Hit me."

"Fuck off," she replied, pulling herself together.

A knock came from the door. Parker walked to pull it open; glad, whoever it might turn out to be.

Broots. "Great. Where to now?" she quizzed, ignoring his frown at the sight of Lyle in her office.

She stepped out of the way for Lyle to pass, Broots practically leaping aside. The pair stepped inside and Parker pulled the door behind her. She knew there was no lead.

"Is- is it safe?" Broots whispered.

Parker shot him a look of puzzlement.

"Bugs," Broots explained.

Parker winced. "Sydney's office," she said.

xoxo

"Listening devices, Sydney," Parker said.

"I know what a bug is, Miss Parker," Sydney replied, agitated.

Parker turned to regard Broots. "Speak, Broots."

"I- Ah- I guess you all know that Raines is in Isolation."

"Yes, we _all_ know," Parker said.

Broots shrugged. "Well- I mean- I think something's going on. Something- something that's not going to be big on smiles."

Parker nodded. "Do you believe in ghosts, Broots?"

Broots shrugged again. "I don't know about- about ghosts, but I've been brought up to believe in the spirit."

"'Earth-bound spirits, my grandmother called them'," Parker recited a line from the opening credits of _Ghost Whisperer_.

"Ah- what?"

"Ghosts, Broots."

"Your- your grandmother-?"

Parker sighed. "You might want to watch out for any ghostly women with a ticket with your name on it."

"What?" Broots blabbed, the beginnings of uncertain fear creeping into his voice.

Parker nodded. She thought she had executed that quite well. Sydney had that look that said he did not approve. She ignored him.

"You- you think that a ghost made- made Raines sick?"

Parker laughed raucously.

Broots was all the more confused. Was she laughing because she found that funny, or because she found him funny?

"Lyle got himself possessed and started roughing people up."

Broots gaped. "H- What?"

Parker turned to Sydney as if it was his cue to explain.

"I- Ah," Sydney said. "Possess might be the wrong word. It would seem to me that the best way in which to describe the situation is to say that an unknown entity took temporary control of his conscious mind."

Broots somehow did not look as though Sydney had explained anything.

"It seems that Lyle was, at that particular point in time, susceptible to intrusions of this nature."

Broots stood there, not saying anything.

"I believe that Lyle- Ethan has what is known as the Inner Sense. It is quite possible, therefore, that in addition to his being a Pretender, that Lyle has a degree of Inner Sense."

Broots let his shoulders slump.

Parker turned to Sydney with a beaming smile as if to commend him. "Good job," she said.

Sydney frowned briefly.

Parker gasped suddenly as though she might have swallowed an insect. "Sydney!" she said, rounding on Sydney now.

Sydney forced himself not to take a definite step backward.

Parker growled. "Why didn't you tell me that Angelo talks?"

"Thing talks?" Broots cut in.

"It's Cousin It," Parker corrected, and then shot him sharp look. Angelo was not a thing, he was her friend.

"I was a little shocked myself," was Sydney's reply.

Parker scoffed. "You didn't think it could be done!" she told him.

"No, I- I did not."

xoxo

Parker sighed, scanned the department store floor. What to get Reagan for Christmas?

"Hi!"

Parker turned, jamming her body back into her skin painfully.

The nurse grinned. She was one of Cox's. "Plum," she supplied, extending a hand.

"Parker," Parker replied.

"We work at the same place," Plum said.

"Yes," Parker replied.

"Christmas shopping," Plum explained.

Parker smiled. "Yeah."

Plum nodded.

"It was terrific talking to you," Parker began, in a rush to get rid of this unwanted company.

"Yes," Plum said. "You're busy. It was great."

"See you… at work… whenever…"

"Yes." Plum hurried off.

Parker turned around, sighed. She was glad that was over.

xoxo

Parker replaced a book on the shelf and turned towards the range of _Harry Potter_ books. Everybody always said children loved _Harry Potter_. She supposed she might even be able to read to him if he couldn't quite read it himself yet.

Something small came pelting towards her and attached itself to her. Parker, whilst trying not to be knocked clean over, was not all that impressed when the little girl referred to her as Lyle. One, Lyle was not a woman. Two, she was.

"Ah," she said.

The little girl, four or five, looked up at her.

"Hi," Parker said.

The child let go of her, eyes wide and disturbed.

"Uh-huh," Parker said in agreement.

The child looked around her, but no Lyle.

Parker glanced upward at the emergence of a young woman at the corner. Her features were Mexican/Spanish, and she was in her early to middle twenties. Parker ealised that she had seen her before. She worked at the Center, but Parker was not sure what she did.

"Ollie!" the woman said. She picked the child up, holding her to her chest, and peered around the little girl's dark hair at Parker. "I'm really sorry," she said. "She's not supposed to ask people for money for gum. I don't know how many times I've told her, but she always goes right on and does it again."

Parker nodded slowly. She wasn't saying a thing.

"I'm really sorry again," the woman said, and walked away, still holding the child.

"I want to get Lyle a present," Ollie whined.

"Baby, I'm sure Lyle has lots of people to give him presents," her mother told her.

"Mommy!"

"Don't you scream in my ear, we'll write him a card," her mother said, putting her down.

Ollie put on a glum face, but offered no objection, seeming satisfied.

xoxo

"The kid giving you grief?"

Parker shouldn't have been spying, but it was for a good cause.

The young woman sighed in response to the man who had just spoken, easily in his middle thirties, or later. A Sweeper. Which was what the woman must have been also.

Ollie watched the Sweeper over the box she was holding.

"I was totally embarrassed!" the younger woman said. "It doesn't matter how many times I tell her," she continued, glancing briefly to the child behind her. "I never seem to impress on her at all."

The Sweeper nodded.

A young man – not as young as the woman, but not as old as the man – came up behind the mother and child silently and placed his hands on Ollie's upper arms. The child screamed shrilly and shot out of his hold. The man winced.

The young woman turned her meanest look on him.

He grinned.

"Get a brain, Mickey!"

"Ow!"

She smacked him in the arm.

"Ow!"

She didn't smack him again, but glared.

Ollie, realising that she knew Mickey and that, though an idiot at times, he was not a threat, fixed a big smile on her face.

"High five, champ!"

The young woman shot Mickey a last look and turned back to her conversation.

Ollie stood there, hands on the box, shiny new Barbie doll packed inside.

"Yeah," Mickey said, as though this sort of thing happened a lot, the cold shoulder. He was a Sweeper also, of course.

Ollie walked up to him and stopped very close. "I want gum," she said quietly.

"What's that, champ?"

"I want gum," Ollie said again.

"Gum it is!"

Ollie grinned.

The two walked to the end of the aisle and were lost from sight. The older Sweeper hadn't noticed.

Parker followed. Ollie might have trusted this Mickey, but Parker never trusted a Sweeper if she could help it. Sam was a different story. She trusted Sam.

xoxo

The pair walked out the front security gates, the box in the child's hand triggering a nasty beeping. Mickey winced at the sharp sound and lifted the child up into his arms in case she ran at the sound that had hurt her ears. "Yup, that was us!" he said to a security officer who had approached. "We'll go pay for that up at the- ah- the register," he said, nodding in the direction of the registers. He laughed. "Youngsters!" he said.

The Security officer watched the pair sceptically.

Mickey paid for the Barbie at the register, but Ollie didn't want gum from a packet, she wanted the gum from the machine.

Mickey handed over a coin and Ollie watched the gumball roll all the way down the spiral and into her outstretched hand. She popped the gumball into her mouth and turned to Mickey with a grin.

He patted her head. He was in trouble. Couldn't leave the kid out here on her own; couldn't take her back in because of that damn doll. He glanced over to the security officer thinking that perhaps he could leave the kid with him, but almost immediately scrapped the idea. "What about we leave dolly with the security man?" he said, kneeling down in front of Ollie.

Ollie looked down at her doll in the plastic bag clutched in her hands.

"We can go back inside and tell mommy we've left her with someone who's going to take good care of her."

Ollie frowned, and then she nodded.

Mickey let out his breath and stood, relieved at the lack of screaming.

The security man agreed to watch the doll for the pair and when they had parted company he dropped the bag off behind the courtesy desk.

xoxo

Ollie's mother punched him in the arm.

Mickey yowled. "The kid wanted gum," he defended himself.

"Ollie's not allowed to have gum!"

Mickey turned to regard Ollie, who smiled. "Nobody's hurt," he said, "no missing limbs, no harm done."

The young woman took Ollie's hand roughly and tugged her towards her. She was in trouble.

"The security man's looking after the doll for her. It weren't the kid's fault. I'm the adult, it's my fault. Mickey can take a hint." He nodded to the older Sweeper, who nodded back. "See ya, Champ," Mickey said to the child. He sighed. "Mommy."

The young man glared.

Mickey left the way he had come.

xoxo

Parker decided that she was definitely getting _Harry Potter_ and then she was leaving before she ran into anyone else.

She paid for the book at the cash register.

xoxo

Jarod rang to ask her how things were going, 4 A.M. in the morning as was his favourite time to do so. Parker didn't know what to say to him. "How's Ethan?" she asked.

"Ethan's alive."

Parker snorted inwardly. Should she honestly have expected any more?

"Zoe's unwell again."

Parker said nothing at all. She knew Zoe was dying. It was cancer. It was likely it was too far advanced to do anything. "Shit, Jarod," she finally said.

Jarod laughed. "I don't think I can help her."

Parker closed her eyes. People died, but how was she supposed to explain it to Jarod.

"It's gone too far to do anything. All we can do is administer pain killers."

Faith, her adopted sister, had died of cancer. Parker knew what it felt like to lose someone that way, but she had been a child then, and she was not Jarod. "Jarod-"

"No," Jarod said, because he didn't want to hear it.

A hint of anger crossed Parker's face. She was trying her damned hardest to be a friend here! She decided to change the subject. "Lyle's an Empath."

"What?" Jarod said.

Parker hadn't thought about it, she had just come out and told him. She had to believe that she could trust him if no one else. He was always trying to save her, trying to convince her that she could turn to the side of good.

"What-? How did you-?"

"Sydney told me."

Jarod scoffed. It wasn't in an amusing way. Jarod was very protective of his former mentor and he would not take kindly to someone playing him.

"Jarod, it's true."

Jarod laughed with savage amusement.

Parker frowned. But then, Lyle didn't need to be an Empath if the individual who had possessed him was. Her head hurt. "At least I think it is," she amended. "Do you believe in possession, Jarod?"

"You're thinking that he could have been possessed by an Empath rather than necessarily being an Empath himself?"

"That's what I'm thinking."

Jarod sighed. So now they were back to square one.

"Fuck!"

"It gets like that," Jarod told her.

"Now he thinks I think he's an Empath because it's more likely that Reagan inherited it from him than it simply being spontaneous."

"Reagan's an Empath?"

"Yeah."

"That I'm aware, Brigitte was not in possession of the anomaly. If Reagan did not inherit expression from Lyle, then it must be spontaneous."

"What if there was an Empath in my family, generations and generations ago? That would make it more likely, wouldn't it?"

"It would. But that would go the same for Lyle. Who would be to say that he wasn't an Empath?"

Parker frowned, racking her brains. "He said – Lyle – he said that he never saw her, that he never saw Catherine. What is that supposed to mean?"

Jarod scoffed.

"What?"

"Psychics claim to speak to the dead, Parker, not Empaths. Empathy is not the same thing. Ethan is able to communicate with Catherine, or rather Catherine with he. Not the same thing. If he expects anyone to believe him, I suggest he first work on getting his story straight."

"Angelo believes that he's an Empath."

"He said that?"

"No, but when I asked whether Reagan was the same, that he was an Empath, he said 'yes'."

"'Yes', he _said_ 'yes'?"

"He nodded."

Jarod sighed.

"Jarod, he talks now."

Jarod laughed.

"I'm not playing with you."

Jarod didn't reply. "Ask him," he said after some moments. "Ask him straight out. I'll ring again."

Parker opened her mouth, but Jarod had already ended the call.

xoxo

Some people did their Christmas shopping months ahead of time; some people did theirs the night before. Parker was one of those The-Day-before-the-Day-before-Christmas people this year. There were presents to buy, cards to write, altogether too much to do.

She was busy. She forgot to ask that question that she had promised to ask. She didn't pick up the phone when Jarod rang. The message on the answering machine said that she was busy with last-minute Christmas shopping, and to call her back. Jarod didn't call back.

xoxo

Christmas Eve. Sam got back today. Parker would ask him when she saw him to sweep her office for bugs.

The girl at the front desk wore a shiny red nose. Parker smiled when she was sure that Midori couldn't see her.

She popped down to Commons to drop Angelo off his present, but she would only give it to him after she had asked him the question that she needed to ask him, and then she would make a quick exit – she had written his name as Tim on the card.

xoxo

"I have to ask you something very important," Parker said, "so it's very important that you think about it carefully."

Angelo shrugged. He was waiting for his present. Parker stood with it behind her back and he kept trying to peek at it as though he might be able to work out what it was.

"Lyle, is he an Empath?"

Angelo watched her, present forgotten now. "I have never wanted anything less for anyone." He smiled. "But yes, Lyle is an Empath." Angelo closed his eyes, turning from her. Opening his eyes, he strode off.

Strange, Parker thought, and stood there for some moments, and then she placed the Christmas-wrapped box down on the low table, and left also.

xoxo

She caught Sam up in the dining hall, coffee in hand. "Sam!" she said and nearly bit her lip. She lowered her voice. "There's something I need you to help me with."

Sam watched her without comment.

She leant back on her heels, awaiting his answer. Sam was thinking it over, she could tell.

"Why not," he finally replied, and the two left the dining hall together.

xoxo

"When you've done that," Parker said, "I got you this." She lifted the package momentarily from the tabletop and replaced it.

Sam smiled briefly.

xoxo

Parker sipped her coffee, Sydney opposite her. She placed her coffee cup down on his desk and pulled an envelope out of her jacket. "I got you this. Sydney." She handed the envelope over.

Sydney took the envelope with a curious expression.

"Don't open it now!" Parker said. She laughed. "It's for Christmas!"

Sydney placed the envelope safely on his desk.

xoxo

"Miss Parker?"

Parker turned back from the door. "Yes, Sydney?"

"Her name was Dorothy. She was your mother's sister."

Parker frowned. "What?" she said.

"The woman who possessed Lyle."

Parker stared.

"This doesn't mean that she's dead," Sydney said quickly.

"No," Parker said. She wanted to believe what Sydney was telling her, but so too did she want to believe Angelo. She didn't want to think anymore. She was so confused. "I have to go," she said.

xoxo

"I can trust you, can't I?" Parker didn't take her eyes from Angelo's.

Angelo looked away.

"Tell me!" Parker said, raising her voice.

"I don't know," Angelo said.

Parker wanted to kick something, instead she refrained. "Shit!" she swore. "Why? Fuck why?" she screamed.

Angelo didn't reply.

"He couldn't care less what you are, whether or not he truly is an Empath or not!" Parker turned on the spot. "Damn it! Why won't you listen to me?" She laughed.

Angelo tried not to hear.

"Momma's dead. Dorothy's dead for all I know. You know what – it'll be me next!"

Angelo coughed.

Parker spun around. She adjusted her expression at the sight of Reagan. "Got you something, babe," she said.

"Who's Dorothy?" Reagan said.

Parker swore, plastered a hand over her mouth. "I-" she said. "She's my mom's sister. My aunt."

Reagan considered this for a moment, and then he said, "I made you this," and extended a handmade Christmas card.

Parker took the card. "Come here, you," she said, and hugged the child. "Don't you ever go and leave me," she said, and watched him seriously, her gaze fixed with his.

"No, big sis," he replied.

Parker held him a moment longer. "Go," she said. "I'll be seeing you." Reagan did as he was instructed. Mr. Parker had promised that they would all have dinner together for Christmas Eve, a family. Parker decided that she would give him his present then.


	6. Chapter 6

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

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Mr. Parker had chosen an expensive restaurant, which specialised in seafood dishes. Painfully, Parker recalled having worked in the very same restaurant one summer of her youth. She had been seventeen. She said nothing, of course. The place had gone up-market, but back then it had been family-orientated. Painful was the song she could still remember all the words to.

Mr. Parker had not come alone. He was accompanied by the blonde doctor Parker only vaguely recalled, Fulton.

The group having ordered, Lyle stood to show Reagan the large glass tanks. Parker hastily made to join them. Reagan stared at a large fish, possibly one of the largest Parker had seen out of an aquarium. Reagan looked around at Parker. "It's so big."

"It is," she agreed.

Reagan read an information plate on the big fish. He would be sure to have little difficulty in reading _Harry Potter_, Parker thought with a sinking feeling.

Reagan moved on to the next tank. Parker glanced over at their table, looked away again, followed behind him.

xoxo

Parker sat at the table, between her father and Reagan; Fulton opposite Mr. Parker and Lyle beside her. Parker shot Lyle an enthusiastic look, glad she wasn't the one sitting next to Fulton.

Parker leant over to speak quietly in Reagan's ear. "What are you thinking, little one?"

Reagan frowned glumly. "I hate salad."

Parker smiled. "How about we make a deal? If you eat your salad, I'll get you an ice-cream."

Reagan looked around at her quickly. "You're fibbing."

Parker made a face. "I'm not fibbing! For real."

"Okay," Reagan said slowly, after some thought.

Parker smiled. She wondered for a moment what Sam was doing with his father in a coma. Perhaps she would invite him for a drink Christmas night. She supposed she was going to be free then.

Across the table, Lyle stood and excused himself as having a call on his cell phone to attend. Parker waited a moment or so before excusing herself also.

xoxo

"What do you stand to gain by my thinking that you are an Empath?" Parker asked coldly, coming up beside Lyle as he stood outside.

He looked around at her briefly and laughed. "I need a drink," he said.

It was Parker's turn to laugh.

Lyle ignored her and walked back inside. Parker stalked after him. If he was getting a drink, then she was getting one too.

xoxo

Parker ordered a scotch. She watched the barman for many moments. Yes, the restaurant was different now.

Lyle had vodka. Parker wondered if he would try to make himself sick to piss Daddy off. That was just his style, she thought.

Later, she returned to the table.

xoxo

She said nothing to her father and slipped into her chair beside Reagan, who promptly offered her a taste of his gelati.

"It's nice," Parker said, handing him his spoon back.

She remembered that she first had gelati on her fourteenth birthday. Her father absent, Edna Raines had taken her out. They had gone ten pin bowling afterward. She would take Reagan one day, Parker thought.

She leant across to speak quietly to her father. "He wanted an ice-cream, Daddy."

Mr. Parker shot her a sharp look.

She looked away. She was in no mood. Standing abruptly from the table, she strode across the room to the bar.

xoxo

"I feel sick," Lyle told her, slurring.

"It happens," Parker said. "You want to go out with me, now's the time. I'm going out for a walk. You're welcome to come."

xoxo

Parker, worried that Lyle might walk off or fall over nothing, took his arm. She wanted to slap him, but she thought that that would be a fat load of help alright.

She had decided that the walk would do him good but the cold only seemed to make him sleepy.

They turned around and walked back in the direction of the restaurant. It was about when they had just come inside when Lyle decided that he felt really sick and Parker had to hurry him off to the bathroom to be sick in the sink.

It was a good thing, she thought, that he was sick now. And then as if only just spying the mirrored wall in front of her, she thought, nice.

xoxo

Reagan sat on his own at the table when Parker and Lyle returned, Mr. Parker having gone to the bar with Fulton. Parker, shooting a glower in her father's direction although he was sure not to receive it, took the two to the coffee lounge where the three of them sat down.

Parker told Reagan quietly that big brother was not feeling well. Reagan frowned, remaining silent.

Parker and Reagan played dominoes. When Reagan got tired, Parker instructed him to sit on the sofa. Lyle sung something for him quietly. Parker thought that she recognised the song for a moment, and then she realised, _99 Red Balloons_. It had taken a while, because she knew the song in English, and Lyle sung it in German.

They were waiting because there was supposed to be a countdown to Christmas.

Parker watched the ceiling and hummed along to the song in her head. She hoped Ethan was having a better Christmas.

xoxo

"You do look better," she said, which was true.

Lyle looked across at her, looked away again.

xoxo

Lyle shook her and she realised she must have fallen asleep. She straightened and with bleary eyes peered across to the sofa where Reagan was still fast asleep.

Mr. Parker appeared, Fulton at his elbow. He had brought champagne.

Parker took the sofa, sitting down beside Reagan.

Lyle sat on her other side. "Reagan's sleeping," he said.

Mr. Parker regarded the sleeping child momentarily and sat. Parker had the feeling he had very little to say to Lyle, and Parker had very little to say to him. Reagan was not a plaything, to switch on and off at whim, when things became too tedious, too hectic, or he was really in no mood. Reagan was a child, and children needed love and care, not grown-up politics. Leaving him alone like that, whether in the presence of so many other guests and patrons of the restaurant, was not an option. She was not entirely blameless herself, but that was by no means a lessener on her father's reprehensible behaviour in her opinion. He always said that he was older and wiser.

She forced her mind to other things. She supposed she was a little upset, and it was not all her father's fault, not now, not here, but re-occurrences of the past. Perhaps she was upset because of Fulton. Perhaps she was upset because Lyle was Lyle and not who she wanted her bother to be. Perhaps she was upset for a lot of reasons. Yes, there were so many reasons.

Mr. Parker spoke quietly with Fulton.

Lyle arranged the dominoes on the coffee table so that they would topple over, one after the other, in a domino effect.

Parker listened and waited. Some forty-five minutes later the coffee lounge was not nearly as quiet nor so empty as it had been.

xoxo

Reagan woke for the countdown, still very sleepy. Lyle carried him out to the car when it was time to go.

Parker felt funny from the champagne and it was so numb inside the car after the noisiness of the restaurant. She watched dark windows.

xoxo

The answering machine blinked back at her until she pressed the MESSAGE button. "Merry Christmas!" trilled a young woman's voice. Debbie. Parker would ring her in the morning.


	7. Chapter 7

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters. I also don't own _Boom Bang A Bang_.

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It had snowed in the night. Parker walked to the wall and turned the central heating up, sat down with a glass of scotch. Scotch on an empty stomach was stupid, her empty stomach reminded her minutes later.

She listened to carollers on the news and wanted Christmas to be over.

Jarod had left her a text message on her cell phone. It read: 'Merry Xmas, J & Ethan!!!!!!' She smiled briefly, slept a little more.

xoxo

When she woke again, she drove up to the Center to drop Reagan's present off with him or whoever was in.

She left it in front of Merchant's office, wrapped and all.

She wanted to stay in the elevator, sitting in the corner like a lost child. She got up and got out and found herself in Isolation where Raines slept alone in a ward. She took up his hand and sat down beside him. She remembered, a long time ago, a song.

It wasn't a real song of course, just a silly made up thing, but it didn't matter. She remembered that he had sung it for her mother, for Catherine, asleep though she was, just the three of them.

She had known longer than she cared to remember. Of course she had known. Her mother would cut and he would have to make it better for her. Catherine would ring him in the middle of the night, or little Parker, and it wouldn't matter to him.

There was a point, in all of that growing up, where she simply forgot, and now, remembering, it made it all so much more confusing.

xoxo

She rang Debbie up on her cell phone, out in the corridor, and got her voice mail. She left a "Merry Christmas, love" and indicated that it would be great if Debbie could wish Broots a Merry Christmas for her.

At home, she drank scotch.

xoxo

Boxing Day, December 26, she got out, drove up to the cemetery where her mother wasn't buried and Thomas was and said a few words to the stones there. Out there, it felt as though she were standing amid a great void, unimaginably large, and yet – she could see right there, right there where the void ended and the world began – but she could never get there, eternally damned to nothingness.

The moment passed and she realised just how incredibly cold it was. Human popsicle she had become, she walked stiffly to the car.

She tried to imagine the house any other way, the way it had been in her childhood. It was too hot, she turned the heating down.

xoxo

Mr. Parker took her to an expensive restaurant – but not the same restaurant they had gone to for Christmas Eve – for her birthday lunch, January 3. She had been before, one year ago. She was glad this time that she was not alone, and glad that Fulton had not accompanied them.

They talked a lot about nothing and Jarod didn't ring to wish her Happy Birthday.

xoxo

Another dead end, she thought with exasperation and irritation as she turned to Sydney. No Jarod.

Sydney looked tired, but Parker knew, by no means disappointed. Jarod was where he ought to be, and that was free. Sydney frowned.

Parker looked away.

xoxo

"Come closer, come closer, and listen. The beat of my heart keeps on missing, I noticed it most when we're kissing. Come closer and love me tonight. That's right! Come closer and cuddle me tight. My heart goes boom-bang-a-bang, boom-bang-a-bang when you are near, boom-bang-a-bang, boom-bang-a-bang loud in my ear, pounding away, pounding away, won't you be mine, boom-bang-a-bang-bang all the time."

Parker cast her gaze across the room. The redhead behind the microphone stand wore a yellow dress, shiny and tight-fitting. The lights turned her green eyes into pools of liquid grey.

Sydney came up beside her elbow. He regarded the woman in mild interest.

Parker felt a stifling need to leave, but still she stayed. Sydney seemed unaware and she wanted to leave. She couldn't move. Sydney was going to figure it out. She should leave.

Jarod's sister did not seem to notice that she was in any danger.

Parker turned swiftly. "He's not here," she said distastefully. Sydney followed suit and followed her out. She didn't hear Emily as they exited the club.

xoxo

Work again, seminar. Parker listened only because she couldn't be bothered not to.

A short break, ten minutes reprieve, Parker walked with Sydney to the coffee machine. No smoking inside, she thought briefly, but for all his genius Lyle did not read minds, and she wondered when he had taken up smoking. It was a bad habit, she knew.

xoxo

Sydney got into a discussion with one of the speakers. Parker wished he wouldn't, he embarrassed her.

The seminar over, she moved to the door on autopilot.


	8. Chapter 8

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

He stood with his head pressed to the wall, watching the wall, an L5 training room, Sweeper Space. Which room, it seemed not to matter. He could see all of that white, but he wasn't seeing the wall at all.

He missed her. He missed her so much. Too much, he thought, frowning, stupid tears on his face.

He thought that he should do something. He wanted to be anywhere else. He wanted to be thinking about anything else.

There was something wrong with him, he knew. He shouldn't have been crying. His head hurt with it. What was wrong with him? Why was he crying?

It had consoled him for a while. They said that he didn't have feelings. They said that what he was was called a sociopath.

He brushed at his cheeks with the heel of his palm, paced the room. He couldn't make himself stop. He wasn't thinking right, he had just to stop thinking about her, but it wasn't working.

He kept thinking about her, tiny thing she was, and so dreadfully alone because he couldn't think anymore so he had run, because… because he had been scared.

It no longer seemed to make any sense, all of the lies and all of the truth.

He walked to the door. He needed to breathe, away from all of this, all of this that suddenly made him unable to breathe. And all he could think was how _she_ would hate him if she knew.

The elevator was taking its time. He wanted to hit the stupid thing. What was wrong with it anyway? Wanted to hit something, generally.

xoxo

Sydney stood and walked to the door, his mind on that ridiculous paper that he had just read. "Come in," he said.

Lyle stepped inside and Sydney shut the door. Lyle turned suddenly. "Please say something!"

Sydney looked uncertain right then. "Are you-?" he began.

Lyle shook his head. No, he wasn't alright.

"Why don't you sit down," Sydney offered awkwardly.

Lyle shook his head. He couldn't sit down.

"We can talk about this," Sydney told him.

Lyle walked to the back of the room and back again. He had to think, think something else. "Tell me about Belgium," he said abruptly.

Sydney didn't speak immediately. Lyle didn't hear him when he did, heard the words but none of them made sense.

Sydney watched him with his gaze. He couldn't stop moving.

"We can talk about this," Sydney said again, changing topic.

"No," Lyle said.

Sydney frowned. He wasn't going to pretend everything was fine when something was clearly wrong. "I want us to talk about this," he said, trying to keep his voice firm but not so firm as to be forceful.

Lyle stopped and met Sydney's gaze. His bottom lip wobbled.

Sydney said nothing but frowned.

Lyle laughed shortly, turned away.

Sydney walked up to him. "Talk to me," he said.

Lyle didn't turn. "Talking is for bigger people," he said.

xoxo

Sydney sighed.

"I miss her, Sydney," Lyle said. "How can I miss her?" He turned and Sydney didn't understand the tears. Lyle looked away, away from Sydney.

"Talk to me now," Sydney said, trying to catch Lyle's eye.

Lyle smiled a smile that Sydney was unsure of, but did not meet Sydney's heavy gaze.

"It doesn't make sense, this now. How can you miss her now, after what you've done?"

Lyle laughed, finally meeting Sydney's gaze, and Sydney thought that it was true, he was mad. "I don't deserve it."

Sydney frowned. "You don't deserve to miss her, to have to feel this useless thing because why should you miss her now, what purpose can it possibly serve? Simply missing her will not make her alive again."

"What?" Lyle said.

Sydney regarded him in a moment of contemplation.

"Sl-Sloane," Lyle said, lowering his voice.

"I see I've mistaken this somehow."

"I don't deserve to miss her because I left her."

Sydney frowned at this development. "Did you care for her?"

"No, look, it wasn't like that. She was my daughter."

"You have a daughter?" Sydney said slowly, uncertain how to approach this.

Lyle smiled and nodded.

"She's with her mother now?"

"She has no mother."

"She-"

"I killed her. There is no mother." His voice was plain.

Sydney's frown was back. "Where did you leave her?"

"In a horrible, horrible place."

"Did you kill her? Did you kill your daughter, Lyle?"

Lyle watched the floor. "No," he said.

"Did you-? Is she living with a new family now?"

Lyle laughed. "I left her with the Center."

There could be no words of consolation. Sydney thought desperately for something to say, the silence dragging on and on. "Her- her mother," he recovered. "Why did you kill her?"

"She was a traitor. She betrayed me and she betrayed the Center. She was working for a rival corporation."

"Then, you left Sloane because it was no more than she deserved. Her mother had hurt you, and hurt you publicly, and she was her mother's daughter."

"I left because there was nothing. I couldn't feel a thing, couldn't think. I wasn't living."

xoxo

"What an idiot!"

"Pardon?" Sydney asked.

"This was stupid," Lyle told him, walking to the door.

Sydney sighed in exasperation. How could this be happening now? "What was her name?" he blabbed.

Lyle turned and looked at Sydney, momentarily. He didn't ask whom Sydney meant by 'her'. "Lee," he replied, pushing the door.

xoxo

"Lyle!" Sydney caught him up at the elevator, caught the doors just before they closed and stepped swiftly inside. "Lee was your wife."

Lyle acted just as if Sydney had not spoken, just as if he were quite alone in the elevator.

"Your wife be-"

"No!" he shot abruptly.

Sydney did not understand what he was trying to say.

"You can't come back from something like that."

"There are-" Sydney began.

"If I love her," Lyle told him, "I can't let her love me again."

The elevator doors sprung open and Lyle strode out into the corridor, leaving Sydney standing alone with his confusion.

xoxo

"Do you trust him?"

Sydney thought it over a moment, though he really needn't have. "I'm in two minds," he replied.

Parker pouted sceptically.

xoxo

He sat in the corner. He was waiting, waiting for the pills to take effect. It seemed less and less that they did anything these days, aside from the neurological damage, but he had to take them. They always said, that they weren't addictive, but he would disagree.

He'd always had them, he guessed, the fits. As a child they'd said it was epilepsy, but they'd said a lot of things.

She'd held his hand, but it had hurt. She didn't hold his hand again.

She would be older now. She'd have grown up. He wouldn't think about the alternative. They'd do almost anything but kill you, were you a commodity. He'd given her that, as much as he resented it. She was valuable, and it was that valuable that guaranteed her life. No, it did not guarantee a good life, but life. He thought, in something close to sick amusement, that it was funny. He'd given her this thing, this thing that made her valuable, but invariably leant her toward serious mental damage and others toward the infliction of harm upon her. But what had to be the most funny, the most stupid, the most fucked up, was that they wouldn't let her die, they wouldn't put her out of her misery. She was much too valuable, and that was all it was.

xoxo

He stood up to be sick at the sink, but he wasn't. He stared into the mirror at the brown eyes that were his own eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Nicholas regarded his father with a sharp look. Sydney frowned. "Dad, can we not have this talk."

Sydney sighed. "That's fine," he said.

Nicholas rolled his eyes to the top of his head. He walked off ahead and grabbed a bag of some white and green things that had 'mint' written somewhere on the packaging.

He could remember, for the longest time, hating his mother's mint thing – that was what he called it – and he had been so glad when Sydney had offered to go shopping with him, so glad to escape his mother who might embarrass him in public, but now he thought that his mother making a few pick-up lines at a young man serving at the register wouldn't be so bad compared to this parent thing Sydney was trying to do. It sucked when his mother did it, and now it sucked when Sydney did it. It made him sick whenever they tried it, but more so with Sydney, because it seemed so, he supposed, unnatural, so forced, and at least it had never seemed that way with his mother; as weird and as embarrassing as she was, loving someone else never seemed like something she was forced into because of some stupid moral ethic.

He paid for his five bags of different mint things and sat down at a plaza bench to wait for Sydney.

xoxo

Sydney walked past the aisles, but he wondered if Nicholas hadn't left. He paused, turned into the aisle although he wasn't interested in buying anything of that particular nature.

The woman was Asian and wore a shiny hot pink jacket. She seemed familiar to Sydney somehow, that was what bothered him.

She decided on a bag of chocolate-flavoured jelly bears and smiled – _good_ – and turned away from the shelving and there was Sydney.

"My grandson adores those," he lied.

The woman nodded. "We would be best friends," she said, and smiled.

"I'm Sydney."

"Kimble," she replied, unfortunately holding her shopping basket with both hands.

xoxo

Nicholas huffed, spotting his father and the little Asian woman with him. His father seriously wasn't trying to set him up with Cinnamoroll!

xoxo

The three sat down at Burger King for coffees. Think of a tropical island, Nicholas told himself.

"… can't you, Nicholas?"

"What?" Nicholas said, his tropical island dissolving faster than an aspirin in water. The hula girl fizzled away and he was left staring at his father.

"The coffees. You can go up to the counter and order them for us, can't you?"

"Sure, dad," Nicholas said, trying to keep the annoyance in his voice to a minimum. He dragged his feet up to the counter and slouched, waiting second in line.

The customer ahead of him moved away. The girl behind the counter grinned. Nicholas smiled. "I'll have three black coffees."

"Any sugar?" the girl asked, smiling now. She leant across the counter and pointed. "If you can't decide just now you can pop back over to your table and then the sugar's right over there."

Nicholas looked at where she was pointing. He could see the stand with the sugar sachets and serviettes and such. "Great," he said.

"Three black coffees?" she asked for clarification.

He nodded.

She returned with the coffees and a plastic tray.

Nicholas handed over a note and smiled at the little tag announcing her as CORBIN.

xoxo

"Virginia," Kimble was saying as Nicholas returned with the tray of coffees.

Sydney frowned at the nine sachets of sugar.

Nicholas shrugged. "Mom always has three. I didn't know what you all wanted so I figured you could decide yourselves."

Kimble took four sachets and smiled. Nicholas had two, and Sydney one.

"Lee," Sydney said abruptly. "That's it. You remind me of Lee, Lyle's wife."

Kimble stared at him.

Nicholas felt suddenly uncomfortable.

Kimble laughed. "What a funny name!"

Sydney frowned and handed a photograph across the table.

She tried to smile. "You got me," she said, and handed the photo back.

"The woman is his sister," Sydney told her.

Kimble laughed and nodded. She retrieved a small bottle from her shoulder purse and shook two pills into her hand and swallowed them with her coffee.

Sydney reached a hand toward her.

She jerked her hand out of reach of his and tears sprung to her eyes. She shook her head as though she thought herself somehow pathetic for the tears in her eyes.

"I can help you," Sydney said. "This doesn't have to go any further than you and I."

"I'm okay," she said.

"Why are you here?" Sydney asked gently. "You're not here on vacation."

"I'm looking for my sister. We're twins. She looks like me, or… I look like her." She laughed. "She's older."

Sydney sighed sadly.

Nicholas was confused and it showed, but he didn't say so because right now everyone had decided not to speak. He frowned at the business card. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN A CAREER IN- it said. He flipped the card over, disinterested. LOVE YOU, DUMMY. He smiled inside and stowed the card away in his pocket.

xoxo

Something caught the corner of his eye and Sydney turned.

Lyle stood over by the entrance. He raised a hand from his leg as if to say "hi".

Sydney frowned. He could do without this now. He stood quickly and walked across the restaurant.

"I thought better than to come over in case I alarmed Nicholas," Lyle explained.

Sydney took hold of his arm and pulled him out of the restaurant after him. "What are you doing here?" Sydney spoke with a brittle snap in his voice.

"I came to talk."

Sydney was clearly out of patience. "I don't think you did."

Lyle frowned.

Sydney smiled. "Well, come on, out with it! What have you for me this time? More lies for Sydney because he's STUPID!"

Lyle took a step away.

Sydney's smile widened. "Surely I didn't hurt your itty bitty feelings?" He laughed, turned away. "I don't know you. Don't call me, don't message me, don't talk to me. I won't hear you." He walked away.

xoxo

Kimble watched Sydney as he sat down.

"I had a call on my cell. It's sorted now."

Nicholas looked across at his father as though only just noticing he had returned and remembering to be interested. Frowning, he looked away again, chewed on a chip.

"You'll help me find my sister?" Kimble asked, trying to keep her voice serious – _just business_ – although Sydney thought that she was scared too.

"Yes," Sydney said.

She nodded shortly.

xoxo

Parker was sick in the morning and that made her angry, to be coming down with something. Sydney would say it was the stress. He would worry that her ulcer was going to recur.


	10. Chapter 10

**Finding Bobby: Book of Monsters and Geniuses** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Parker walked into the boardroom meeting in a confident stride. She slipped into a seat beside Sydney.

Mr. Parker was not at all pleased. "There is only so much one can take," he began, and the feeling of unease in the room seemed almost as though magnified, "only so much to endure. The lack of any progress with Jarod's recapture, and Mirage and Gemini. I'm not going to begin to get started with Kyle and Alex. This has not been a comfortable thing to admit. The Tower has come to their limit, no more give." Mr. Parker shook his head. "The Center Corporation is one of the major leaders in this field – the leaders."

Lyle stood from his seat but Mr. Parker did not stop to let him speak, and so he sat again, but not pleased about it.

"Blue Cove is facing the very real threat of insolvency. The Tower cannot continue to support a branch that would drive the entire corporation to ruin." He sighed. "Now, there are going to be some changes made here today. I have worked too hard and for too long to see it all come to nothing. We all have. We have given our lives for this thing, and many of us in the very real sense." He paused and it suddenly seemed as though he may not continue. "Dr. Cox," he said abruptly. "I am of this moment instating yourself as Med Space Director. Timothy. I am assigning you to work with Granville," he said to Angelo, and they all knew that he could – Angelo was Center property. "Dr. Green. You are to be reinstated to the Pretender Project."

Sydney frowned. That was all very well but they had no such Pretender.

"Infinity is in no capacity fit for such an assignment." Lyle started, getting to his feet.

"Infinity will be made ready," Mr. Parker said.

Lyle laughed, rolled his eyes. Mr. Parker shot him a look and he sat again. This was so typical, Lyle thought with a smile that was in no way glad.

"Reagan is to remain with Dr. Merchant," Mr. Parker said, nodding to the woman.

"Mr. Parker," Angelo said, "What is it that I am to be working-?"

Mr. Parker cut him off. "We shall discuss details at the conclusion of this meeting."

"Dr. Merchant?"

"Chairman, sir."

"Reagan is to be readied for Field."

Parker gaped.

"Field, sir?" Merchant said in surprise.

"That is correct, Doctor. I have decided that we will be recommitting a team to Recruitment."

"Father."

Parker stared hard at her brother. Since when did he address Mr. Parker as father?

"Reagan is inexperienced. A child. He is not capable of protecting himself. He would only cause to endanger the entire team. It would not be efficient to endanger such an important, and one of our few assets that way."

Mr. Parker's expression did not change, his voice somehow as though amused. "What is it that you propose in place, Sweeper?"

Parker shut her mouth.

"With the proper guidance, Miss Parker and I would surely prove to suit adequately the purposes of a perceptive, Chairman."

Mr. Parker laughed shortly. "Is that so?"

Lyle did not flinch. "Yes, sir."

Parker, as mad at him as she was for offering her up as a device for such a purpose, as a thing to be experimented and commanded and dispossessed of even her own will, knew too that assigning a seven-year-old, and Empath, to Field was not the thing to be done.

She stood to her feet. "Daddy," she said.

Mr. Parker shot her a look. She was siding with _that_ over her own father? "It shall be considered," he said, and there was not even enough emotion in his voice to constitute anger.

Sydney turned to glance across to Parker as she took her seat once more. She ignored him.

xoxo

The Inner Sense had never seemed more real to her, more of a curse, a horrible, horrible thing. But there was one thing she needed to know.

"You fuck me around and _I will_ kill you," she breathed, watching her brother as though she meant to kill him with her stare alone. "I want the truth."

"Am I an Empath?" Lyle said, and Parker wanted to kill him for his smile. "Yes," he said.

Parker glared. How dare he! How fucking dare he!

xoxo

The first child was two years old and a boy. Parker was almost glad that he was so young. Matt may never know any different.

The second, a girl and eight years. Fealty was old enough to be afraid and that hurt Parker. Her brother was as numb as they had always said, as she had always known. He felt nothing at all.

Kennedy was fourteen and an Empath.

Kavan was eleven.

xoxo

The sky was clear and it promised to be a good day. Parker thought that the howling wind was enough a mirror of her own mind not to warrant words.

Sprawling out ahead of her, an expanse of wasteland and rubbish, and there, over there, a large high rise housing estate.

Inside her head, she said a prayer that her mother could forgive her.

She nodded to the Sweeper Team.

It was 8 A.M..

The Sweepers stayed behind as she had instructed. Reconnaissance required few people, and the fewer the better.

Parker went with her brother alone.

No school today.

xoxo

Sheena was fifteen. She was walking to the pool at 10 A.M..

Parker relayed all of this to her team and the tech assigned ran it up on his computer and informed her of the whereabouts of this pool and the likeliest routes there to.

xoxo

The telephone woke her late Sunday evening. They might have found Jarod, the voice on the phone informed her, and the Chairman wanted to give this thing one last shot.

xoxo

Her watch told her that it was 5:48 A.M.. It was day by 6.

A horrible day from the outset, Parker thought.

Sydney had been given temporary reassignment.

Her Inner Sense in its heightened form, Parker was not at all comfortable in his presence. They did not talk at all.

xoxo

It was Jarod alright. And it was well and truly deserted. The Sweepers did their job and collected everything of use to take back for analysis.

Parker stood without moving, her grimace part disgusted. It seemed almost as though this had been the only outcome.

Despite this, Sydney was angry at her. He left with the Sweepers when they returned to the SUVs.

Parker told her team that she was right behind them. She snorted. Sydney made her so mad!

xoxo

Parker shot her twin a pathetic look. God, she wasn't dying! He had been doing that far too often lately: pretend concern.

She shook her head and stepped out into the alley. She walked swiftly in the direction of the SUVs, glad that she was making it hard for Lyle to keep up with her.

She stopped dead in confusion. There were the SUVs, but where was her Sweeper Team, and where was Sydney?

Parker spun at the sound of a gunshot.

"Oh shit. I missed," said the brown eyes in a pouting woman's voice. The woman lowered the gun.

xoxo

Parker woke in a bright light. Blinking, a room came slowly into focus. It was so bright because it was white. No Momma, no Tommy. She wasn't dead.

She struggled to remember. She had been looking for Sydney. She couldn't find Sydney. Where was Sydney? She screamed.

The room streamed with people, and Parker screaming. Someone administered sedative and the screaming died.

She didn't know the time that had passed, but there was Sydney.

Sydney walked to the bed and took up her hand in his own. "You're okay," he told her gently.

Parker frowned. Why wouldn't she be okay?

He sighed.

Something was missing. "Something's missing," Parker said suddenly, the first words she had spoken that were not screaming.

"Yes, Jarod is still out there somewhere."

"What happened to me?" Parker asked.

"Don't sit," Sydney said.

She eyed him, but took his advice and did not sit. "How long?"

"Five months."

Parker couldn't take it in.

"At first we thought the baby would die for sure. You were shot in the stomach. But…"

Sydney reached out and placed both of their hands on her stomach. He smiled.

Parker felt sick. She was- she was pregnant? She reached out her free hand and placed it a top Sydney's hand. "I didn't know," she said in a shaky voice.

Sydney frowned.

Parker's chin wobbled.

"Hey!" he said.

"How far along is it?" Parker demanded, pushing her tears and Sydney's consolations away.

"Eight months," he replied cautiously.

Parker scrunched up her face. "I want-" she said.

"What do you want?" Sydney asked, careful that he did not upset her.

"I want what's missing!"

Sydney frowned.

"Something's missing," she said again, irritated.

"What's missing, Miss Parker?"

Parker fixed her eyes on Sydney in a glare. She smiled and it was not a pretty smile. "Little brother chicken? He thinks I'll kill him for letting that bitch shoot me!" she said in a sweet voice.

"That bitch shot him too," came a voice from the door. Sydney turned and Parker saw that it was Dr. Brown, the Tower doctor. "He's dead."

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Okay, this is the end. I hope it helped to explain some of the things from 'Changeling', and was a bit of a lead up to it. As always, R&R. Like it… hate it… constructive criticism… all reviews are welcome.


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